FROM-THE-LIBRARY-OF
TRIN1TYCOLLEGETORDNTO
ENGLISH CHURCH LIFE
FROM 1660 TO 1833
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE POPULAR USE OF THE
ATHANASIAN CREED
An Examination of some Prevalent Opinions
Crown 8vo, paper covers, is. net ; cloth, 15. 6d. net.
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA
by &U-Q.5fcnelUr-in tJie
ENGLISH CHURCH LIFE
FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE
TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT
CONSIDERED IN SOME OF ITS NEGLECTED OR FORGOTTEN FEATURES
BY
J. WICKHAM LEGG
FORMERLY MEMBER OF THE CANTERBURY HOUSE OF LAYMEN
VIXERE FORTES ANTE AGAMEMNONA
WITH FRONTISPIECE
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA
1914
98163
JUN221976
TO
THE HONOURED MEMORY OF
THE REVEREND ALBERT BARFF, M.A.
VICAR OF ST. GILES' CRIPPLEGATE
AND PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S
THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED
IN GRATITUDE FOR THE SUGGESTION THAT THIS
i
RESEARCH SHOULD BE UNDERTAKEN
AND IN REMEMBRANCE OF A LONG AND DELIGHTFUL
FRIENDSHIP.
PREFACE.
IN the following chapters it is not intended to present to the
reader a complete history of the Church of England from
1660 to 1833. The aim in view is rather to draw attention
to points that have been hitherto but little dealt with by
writers, and thus remain unnoticed, and out of mind ;
and especially to emphasize the existence in the period of
practices and ideas in which it has been often assumed that
the time was most wanting, but of which a great part of
the period shows a marked persistence. The school of
Hammond and Thorndike, Pearson and Wheatly, was
influential over a far greater extent of time than is commonly
thought. It is hoped that as a result of the investigation
set out in these pages, reason may be seen for a revision of
many of the popular opinions concerning our period, and the
judgements that have come from many and very different
quarters may prove in some cases to have been pronounced
without sufficient historical foundation, and to be, perhaps,
overbold and unbalanced
Few things in history are more striking than the una
nimity of writers in denunciation of our period. We are
told that the eighteenth century was a time of "general
decay of religion," of " a poisoning of the blood," or " a black
spot on the shining history of England". The least in
jurious reproaches are accusations of slovenliness, sloth,
" marasmus," and on the part of the clergy of attention only
to fees and preferment. Some of these attacks have been
made by men belonging to the Church of England, made,
viii PREFACE.
most likely, in good faith, but of late to be traced to a mere
following of the multitude and of the prejudices and fashion
of the day. Perhaps there was a leaning on the part of the
writers of the nineteenth century and of the Victorian epoch
to plume themselves on the supposed excellency of their own
age, as an age of "progress," "enlightenment," etc. The
lustre of the age in which they wrote would be heightened
by darkening the age which went immediately before.
The friends of the Church of England thus combining to
blacken its history, it is not to be looked for that the Roman
Catholic controversialist should be slow to take advantage of
so promising a situation. The supporters of the Anglican
establishment, he cries, "are just able here and there to lay
their finger upon a single thread of orthodox testimony
which absolutely invisible in the storm of the Reformation
shines out for a moment among the Caroline divines, and
then once again under Victoria".1
Attacked thus by his hereditary enemies,2 the churchman
may be glad of assistance in showing that something more
than "a single thread" of orthodox testimony "shone out"
for a moment in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries,
or that something better than a complete indifference to
duties, or a gross neglect of them, prevailed from 1660 to
1833. It may prove a hard saying to those who hug
themselves in the belief that all virtue began in the nine
teenth century, but it may still be true that men did their
duty before the days of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart
Mill.
Such an attempt as this, to upset opinions widely held,
must show good reason for its being. In the following
pages, therefore, the writers of the period have been allowed
1 H. Ignatius Dudley Ryder, Catholic Controversy, Burns and Oates, no date, tenth
edition, conclusion, p. 256.
2 " It had to confront the Roman authority, now turned into the most implacable and
aggressive of deadly enemies." (R. W. Church, on Bishop Andrewes, in Pascal and
other Sermons, Macmillan, 1896, p. 71.)
PREFACE. ix
•
to speak for themselves, and to express their own opinions
and to give their own facts. This may be but a dull way of
writing history ; it gives no opportunity for brilliant general
izations, for drawing insecure deductions, or for showing off
the fine style. The reader must be prepared for disjointed
and clumsy work. Moreover, the work is frankly an attack
on certain positions almost generally admitted, and thus not
unnaturally a feeling of annoyance will arise, if Dr. Johnson's
dictum be true that most men are unwilling to be taught.
But a cold way of dealing with this subject may possibly
be more satisfying and attractive to scholars than the
eloquence of an advocate determined to see in the matter
before him nothing but the view in which he has been
brought up.
It will perhaps be noticed that not only the influential
authors of the period have been brought forward, but also
the lesser, the almost forgotten writers and pamphleteers of
the time, have been quoted ; evejn the evidence of play
wrights and novelists has not been neglected. These latter
writers bear witness to the spread of opinions below the
leaders, and to their permanence and vogue among the
people.
All the material met with has not been presented. Con
siderations of space have constantly been held in view ; but
it is hoped that enough will have been placed before the
reader to justify the position taken up at the beginning of
this preface : that the influence of the school of Thorndike
and Hammond lasted much longer into our period than is
commonly allowed.
It may be proper perhaps to say something of the causes
which led me to take up what churchmen have so often been
told is for them an unattractive field of study. By some
chance there fell under my notice a copy of Paterson's
Pietas Londinensis, a book which gives a record of the
services in London churches in 1714. I remember then (it
was before the end of the last century) being exhorted by
x PREFACE.
the Rev. Albert Barff, whose parish of St. Giles' Cripple-
gate is now mourning the loss of a devoted pastor,
to look more closely into the history of the eighteenth
century, where I might find something that would repay
attention. Next, by the kindness of the Vicar of Bledlow,
then the Rev. Stephen Pritchett, I became acquainted with
the manuscript Inventory of the Parish Church of Bledlow,
drawn up in 1783. This proved indeed worthy of attention
and it was published about 1905 in the Transactions of the
St. Pauls Ecclesiological Society. It confirmed Mr. Barffs
opinion that the history of the eighteenth century was worth
looking into by churchmen, in spite of all that Mr. Mark
Pattison and many others may have said of it.
But unless I had been encouraged to go on with this
study by a dear friend, the Right Reverend William Edward
Collins, Bishop of Gibraltar, now with God, I doubt if the
grace of perseverance would have been given me. Had I
not received his commendation for what I had begun I might
easily have been dissuaded from continuing in the work by
the greatness of the task and the feebleness of my own
powers. The Rev. Dr. B. J. Kidd has added to his many
acts of kindness another ; and he has given himself the more
than usually troublesome work of reading and correcting
some of the chapters in manuscript. Further, I have en
joyed the immense advantage of the advice of the Rev.
Henry Austin Wilson, of Magdalen College, Oxford, who
undertook the laborious task of reading through the proofs,
and has thus saved me from many an error and misjudgement.
And Mr. T. Gambier- Parry, who daily gives me help in the
Bodleian Library, has increased the obligations of the readers
of this book to him by furnishing the elaborate index which
I do not doubt they will find invaluable. With loan of
books, help in libraries, and in many other ways, I have been
encouraged by the Venerable the Archdeacon of Northamp
ton ; the Rev. Douglas Macleane, Prebendary of Sarum ;
the Rev. George Horner ; the Rev. Herbert Salter ; and
PREFACE. xi
the Rev. Claude Jenkins ; to all of whom I am glad of this
opportunity of expressing my indebtedness.
Lastly, I would offer my sincere thanks to Bodley's
Librarian, Mr. Falconer Madan, for the facilities afforded in
the reproduction of the portrait of Robert Nelson which
forms the frontispiece to this present work.
J. WICKHAM LEGG.
OXFORD,
Feb. 20, 1914.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE vii
SYMBOLS xviii
EDITIONS xix
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION i
Piety and Morality amongst the People 4
The Old High Church School 10
The Nonjurors 16
CHAPTER II.
THE EUCHARIST 21
Frequency of Eucharist 22
Daily Celebration 25
Weekly Celebration 30
Monthly Communion 35
Number of Communicants ........ 37
Non-communicating Attendance 41
Ceremonies in Worship 41
Appendix on Use of Unexpected Words 45
CHAPTER III.
THE EUCHARIST (continued} . 48
Early Celebrations 48
Communion while Fasting ........ 50
Mode of Communion ......... 56
Devotional Use of Agnus Dei, etc • 57
Amen at Moment of Communion 61
Mutual Salutation of Communicants ....... 63
Reverence to Altar after Service 64
Reservation of Eucharist 65
xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Opinions held as to Eucharist ... .... 66
The Eucharistic Sacrifice ......... 69
Value of u Table Prayers " -75
CHAPTER IV.
OBSERVANCE OF THE DUTY OF DAILY SERVICE 77
As Recommended by Authority ....... 79
As Offered by the Clergy 87
As Attended by the People ........ 94
Tables showing the Hours of Daily Prayer in London and Westminster 108
Appendix : Letter from a Gentleman of the Inns of Court complaining of
the Mutilations of the Daily Service 1 1 1
CHAPTER V.
THE CHURCH BUILDING, ITS FURNITURE AND DECORATION . .119
Return of Decency after 1 660 . . . . . . . . 1 20
The Altar and its Furniture . . . . . . . .126
Material of Altar 134
Altar Frontals 136
Altar Candlesticks . . . 1 39
Branches ............ 144
Use of Crosses, Pictures, etc 145
Seats about Altar .......... 147
Litany Desk ........... 149
Chancel Screens . . . . . . . . . .149
Separation of Sexes 1 50
Church Building . . . . . . . . . .151
Free and Open Churches . . . . . . . . .154
Domestic Chapels . . . . . . . . . • 155
Oratories 156
Appendix: Inventory of Bledlow at the Visitation in 1783 . . .160
CHAPTER VI.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS AT CHURCH AND AT HOME . . 164
Baptism 164
Respect to Betters 168
Baring the Head in Church 171
Exchange of Salutations 172
Reverence made to the Altar . . . . . . . .173
Bowing at the Sacred Name . . . . . . . .177
Turning to the East at the Creed 173
Turning to the East at Gloria Patri . . . . . . .177
Gloria tibi Domine . 1 80
TABLE OF CONTENTS. xv
PAGb
Standing at the Gospel ... . .181
Kneeling at Prayers . . .183
Voluntaries during Service . 184
Organs .185
Music ... . .187
Disturbing the Minister .189
Sermons .... .189
Unusual Practices . 193
Funerals ..... . 195
Appendix : Children's Service at Bath .... . 202
CHAPTER VII.
OBSERVANCE OF CHURCH SEASONS . 203
Christmas ... ... . 203
Epiphany ... 209
Candlemas . . .211
Lent . . 211
Holy Week .... . ... 221
Maundy Thursday 223
Good Friday . . . 224
Easter . 227
Rogations 228
Keeping of Sunday 232
Appendices : The King's Maundy . . . 247
Rogation Processions 249
CHAPTER VIII.
DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE 252
Discipline at the Beginning of Lent .... . 252
Degradation of Clergymen 254
Excommunication 257
Public Penance before 1813 259
Private Confession practised by Individuals ..... 263
Private Confession recommended in Books of Devotion . . . 267
Private Confession recommended by Divines 270
Confessor to the King's Household 276
Appendix : Cases of Public Penance 278
CHAPTER IX.
CHURCH SOCIETIES 281
Life in Community .281
Guilds . . . . . . . . . . . .291
The Oxford Methodists 297
The Truro Religious Society 299
xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Societies for the Reformation of Manners . . . 301
S.P.C.K. and S.P.G., etc .... 303
Theological Colleges .......... 304
Appendix : Rules of Dr. Horneck's Religious Society .... 308
Rules of the Religious Society at St. Giles' Cripplegate . . . 309
CHAPTER X.
PRAYERS FOR THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED AND INVOCATION OF SAINTS
AND ANGELS 315
Invocation of Saints and Angels . . . . . . -333
CHAPTER XI.
BOOKS OF PRAYER AND SPIRITUAL READING : ADAPTATIONS . . 338
Popular Books of Prayer . . . . . . . . -338
Prayers in Manuscript ......... 342
Practice of adapting Roman Catholic Prayer Books . . . -345
CHAPTER XII.
OPINIONS IN OUR PERIOD ON THE MEANING OF THE ORNAMENTS
RUBRIC : WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE VESTMENTS ACTUALLY
WORN 351
Dr. Theophilus Leigh's " Distinctive Vestment " .361
The Cope . .369
The Alb . 373
The Surplice . 374
Outdoor Dress . . . 378
CHAPTER XIII.
THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION AND CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH . 382
Constitution of the Church ........ 390
CHAPTER XIV.
ATTEMPTS AT A BETTER UNDERSTANDING WITH SOME CONTINENTAL
CHRISTIANS 393
Attempted Reconciliation with Greeks 394
Correspondence with Calvinists ........ 402
Correspondence with Lutherans ........ 404
Attempts at Reunion with the West .... . . 406
INDEX 420
FRONTISPIECE.
ROBERT NELSON
Front the painting by Sir G. Kneller in the Bodleian Library ', Oxford.
SYMBOLS.
1683 = [T. Seymour] Advice to the Readers of the Common Prayer, second
edition, 1683.
1692 = A single sheet folio, second edition, Samuel Keble, 1692. Press Mark
in the British Museum : 491, k. 4. (u).
1 708 = A New View of London, published in two volumes in 1 708, said to have
been edited by Edward Hatton. The first volume was printed for R. Chis-
well, A. and J. Churchill, T. Home, J. Nicholson, and R. Knaplock. The
second volume for John Nicholson and R. Knaplock.
1714 = James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Joseph Downing for
William Taylor, 1714.
1824 = London Parishes, London, Jeffery, 1824.
D.N.B. = Leslie Stephen, Dictionary of National Biography, London, Smith
Elder, 1885.
Epitome = Dictionary of National Biography, Index and Epitome, edited by
Sidney Lee, London, Smith Elder, 1906.
N.E.D. = A new English Dictionary on historical principles, ed. by James A.
H. Murray, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1888—
An obelus (t) after a word indicates that it is reproduced exactly as written or
printed.
XVI U
EDITIONS.
Catalogue (spoken of chiefly in Chapter IX.) = Either British Museum or Bod
leian catalogue of printed books, as now in use.
Canons of 1604 = Edward Cardwell, Synodalia, Oxford, 1842, vol. i. pp. 164
and 248.
Evelyn (John), Diary of John Evelyn, Esq., ed. W. Brag and Henry B.
Wheatley, London, Bickers, 1879, m f°ur volumes.
Fielding (Henry), Works, ed. Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, in
ten volumes.
Goldsmith (Oliver), Works, Globe ed., Macmillan, 1869.
Johnson (Samuel), BosweWs Life of Johnson and Tour to the Hebrides, ed. by
George Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1887, in six volumes.
- Works, in fifteen volumes, Edinburgh, 1806.
Lake (Edward), Officium Eucharisticum a preparatory service to a Devout and
Worthy Reception of the Lord's Supper, Sixth Edition, London, Chr.
Wilkinson, 1681. Imprimatur is dated 1673.
Paterson (James), Pietas Londinensis : or, the present ecclesiastical state of
London, London, W. Taylor, 1714.
Pope (Alexander), Poetical Works, Globe ed., A. W. Ward, 1869.
Pepys = Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, ed. Braybrooke and
Mynors Bright, London, Bickers, 1875, in six volumes.
The references are in most cases to the dates of the diary.
Sparrow (Anthony), A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer, London,
Garthwait, 1661. 16°.
Spectator = The Spectator, London, Tonson and Draper, 1747, in eight
volumes, 80.
Swift (Jonathan), Works, ed. Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh, Constable, 1814, in
nineteen volumes.
xix
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
MR. MARK PATTISON opens his essay on the tendency of relig
ious thought in England from 1688 to 1750 with a quotation from
Hallam. Material prosperity, says this latter writer, had never
been greater in England than in the first years of the eighteenth
century. Upon this Mr. Pattison remarks :
This is the aspect which that period of history wears to the political
philosopher. The historian of moral and religious progress, on the other
hand, is under the necessity of depicting the same period as one of decay
of religion, licentiousness of morals, public corruption, profaneness of lang
uage — a day of ' rebuke and blasphemy '. Even those who look with suspi
cion on the contemporary complaints from the Jacobite clergy of * decay of
religion' will not hesitate to say that it was an age destitute of depth or
earnestness ; an age whose poetry was without romance, whose philosophy
was without insight, and whose public men were without character ; an age
of ' light without love,' whose ' very merits were of the earth, earthy '. In
this estimate the followers of Mill and Carlyle will agree with those of
Dr. Newman.
* * *
It is especially since the High Church movement commenced that the
theology of the i8th century has become a byeword. The genuine
Anglican omits that period from the history of the Church altogether.1
It is satisfactory to find that material prosperity is not the very
guide of life ; but it must be owned that a careful reading of Mr.
Mark Pattison's essay does not discover the grounds which he had
for attributing to the first half of the eighteenth century " decay of
religion, licentiousness of morals, public corruption, profaneness of
language". It is unlucky that Deism, Socinianism, what is called
Latitudinarianism, should have been also during this period, accord
ing to Mr. Pattison, equally predominant. A rash speculator upon
Mr. Pattison's premises might be tempted to see cause and effect
in Latitudinarianism and a low state of morals.
1 Mark Pattison, Essays and Reviews, London, John W. Parker, 1860, p. 254.
I
2 INTRODUCTION.
We must then look elsewhere than in Mr. Mark Pattison's essay for
the evidence which has led so many to declare our period to be the
age of irreligion. He makes indeed a confession towards the end of
his essay which does much to nullify his charge of decay of religion
or rejection of Christianity. Outside the circle of ministers and
privy councillors, politicians and parlia-ment-men, he owns that
Christianity had still a firm hold upon people.
However a loose kind of Deism might be the tone of fashionable
circles, it is clear that distinct disbelief of Christianity was by no means
the general state of the public mind. The leaders of the Low-church
and Whig party were quite aware of this. Notwithstanding the universal
complaints of the High-church party of the prevalence of infidelity,
it is obvious that this mode of thinking was confined to a very small
section of society.1
Agreeable to this view is the following passage from Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu.
At this very minute there is a bill cooking up at a hunting seat in
Norfolk to have not taken out of the commandments and clapped into the
creed, the ensuing season of parliament. This bold attempt for the
liberty of the subject is wholly projected by Mr. Walpole, who proposed it
to the secret committee in his parlour. William Yonge seconded it, and
answered for all his acquaintance voting right to a man. Dodington very
gravely objected, that the obstinacy of human nature was such that he
feared when they had positive commands to do so, perhaps people would
not commit adultery and bear false witness against their neighbours with the
readiness and cheerfulness they do at present.2
Montesquieu has been claimed as a witness for the entire dis
appearance of religion ; but it must be remembered that when in
England he associated only with politicians. His companion in
England was Lord Chesterfield, who is not likely to have led him
into the classes outside politicians. Indeed his remarks seem to
deal only with members of parliament. Thus he says :
Point de religion en Angleterre ; quatre ou cinq de la Chambre des
communes vont a la messe ou au sermon de la chambre, excepte dans les
grandes occasions, ou 1'on arrive de bonne heure. Si quelqu' un parle de
religion, tout le monde se met a rire.3
His evidence must be received with a considerable amount of
doubt whether he had a deep or thorough acquaintance with the
1 Mark Pattison, Essays and Reviews, p. 313.
zLady Mary Wortley Montagu and her times, London, Methuen, 1907, p. 315.
3 Montesquieu, Oeuvres completes, ed. Ed. Laboulaye, Paris, 1879, t. vii. Notes sur
1' Angleterre, p. 195.
INTRODUCTION. 3
opinions of the great majority of Englishmen ; and it may be re
garded accordingly.
It is not fair to an age to take its politicians as its repre
sentatives in morals. Politicians are but ill examples of the better
sort of men. The history of Athens and Rome may teach us that
an Aristides or a Cato cannot be looked for in every generation,
while characters like Sir Robert Walpole, or Lord Chesterfield, or
inventors of "terminological inexactitudes" abound in all times.
Politics must be like pitch, not to be handled without defilement.
Mr. Huxley, with something of the self-satisfaction of the
nineteenth century, has remarked its superiority to the eighteenth,
so that nowadays
Women of good repute do not gamble, and talk modelled upon Dean
Swift's "Art of Polite Conversation" would be tolerated in no decent
kitchen. Members of the legislature are not to be bought.1
Mr. Huxley did not live into the twentieth century, or he would
not have affirmed the first sentence of this paragraph ; and an almost
exact reproduction of Swift's Polite Conversation was heard at the
moment that Mr. Huxley was writing his address. I trust it is true
that members of the legislature are not to be bought ; but * a Political
Agent ' has let us into some of the secrets of electioneering ; both
political parties, he tells us, are so deeply involved that neither dares
accuse the other.2
Varying views may be taken in different ages. Some may see
decivilisation where others see progress. In the present age,
thought and action flow in an anti-christian stream. A distinguished
Oxford historian has told us that he has not the heart to continue the
history of his country after the battle of Waterloo ; and a Chancellor
of a University, who has also held great offices under the Crown,
laments the rusticity and want of manners prevalent in the present
day. In fact it is hopeless to look for certainty or finality in human
affairs. Human opinion is like a huge pendulum, which swings
slowly backwards and forwards, but never continues in one stay. A
hundred years ago who would have thought that the proof of the
proposition that the three internal angles of a triangle are together
equal to two right angles could be shown to be unsatisfactory? or
that the doctrine of gravitation required to be " restated" ?
JT. H. Huxley, Science and Culture, Macmillan, 1882, p. 124.
9 Some Experiences of a Political Agent, Mills & Boon, 1910.
4 INTRODUCTION.
PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE.
Perhaps we may be allowed to suspect that things between 1688
and 1750 were not so wholly bad as the morbid mind of the chief
founder of thought in modern Oxford has suggested. Fielding
does not look upon the world from precisely the same point of view as
Richardson, yet Fielding and Richardson bear testimony as follows.
Fielding says :
I am convinced there never was less of love intrigue carried on among
persons of condition than now.1
And Richardson in a Rambler (No. 97) often attributed to him
and which bears internal evidence of this suggestion, praises the
age of the Spectator for virtue in both sexes. Churches, he says,
were then almost the only places where single women were to be
seen by strangers.
In the time of the Spectator, excepting sometimes an appearance in the
Ring, sometimes at a good and chosen play, sometimes on a visit at the
house of a grave relation, the young ladies contented themselves to be
found employed in domestick duties ; for then routs, drums, balls, assem
blies, and such like markets for women, were not known.
If we pass into the latter half of the eighteenth century, Mr.
Pattison describes the years from 1750 to 1830 as "an age whose
literature consisted in writing Latin hexameters".2 But we have
heard of Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, and later on, of Charles Lamb
and Sir Walter Scott. There must be few indeed who would not
be proud to have written as these writers have done, and to have
left behind them so clear a record, free from all charge of encourag
ing evil. A strict moralist could find in them little or nothing to
blame, and yet they were welcomed by an age which could hardly
have been depraved if it found recreation and delight in writings
so wholesome and innocent. Again, the Essayists in the Spectator
claim that they have given " no fashionable Touches of Infidelity, no
obscene Ideas, no Satires upon Priesthood, Marriage, and the like
popular Topicks of Ridicule ".3 And yet the sale of the Spectator
was very great. So with the Guardian. Johnson's essays in the
Rambler, the Idler, the Adventurer were greeted at the time of
1 Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Book XIV. ch. i. Works, ed. Murphy & Browne,
London, Bickers, 1871, vol. vii. p. 263.
2 Mark Pattison, op. cit. p. 261.
3 Spectator, No. 262, Monday, December 31, 1711.
PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE. 5
their appearance for possessing the impress of a great teacher of
morals. They also had a large circulation, and were widely read.
At the end of the last Rambler Johnson makes much the same
claim as the Spectator to innocence of language and thought.
Is this consistent with the statement that the eighteenth century is
"one of decay of religion, licentiousness of morals, public corruption,
profaneness of language," 1 more than in those times which went be
fore it or came after it ?
Evidence in the same direction is given by the large number of
books of devotion printed in the early part of our period and
throughout the eighteenth century ; edition after edition comes out
of such works as the Whole Duty of Man, a Week's Preparation,
Nelson's Companion for the Festivals and Fasts, Lake's Officium
Eiicharisticum, Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, William
Law's Serious Call? Booksellers do not risk their money on such
publications unless there be a fair' chance of a return.
If, as Mr. Pattison would have us believe, the age were irredeem
ably bad, why did Tillotson's Sermons which dealt chiefly with
morals have so great a sale? An age which spends its money
upon the purchase of prayer books and collections of sermons is
not likely to be so lost to all sense of shame and decency as Mr.
Pattison would represent. And at the present time if we had a
literary dictator like Dr. Johnson, is it likely that he would be able
to criticise off-hand, as Johnson did,3 the best Sermons of his time?
He held them to be "a considerable branch of English literature so
that a library must be very imperfect if it has not a numerous col
lection of sermons ".4 Private libraries are not formed nowadays ;
and if they were, how many sermons would be found in the cata
logue ? And a writer of the present age bids us note that
Every one who looks at an English country-house library is struck by the
abundant provision of sermons, mainly collected, like everything else in
deed, in the eighteenth century. And every reader of Boswell's Johnson
has been impressed by the frequent recurrence of devotional and religious
books in the literary talk of the day, and, what is perhaps more remarkable,
by the fact that wherever Boswell and Johnson go they constantly find
volumes of sermons lying about, not only in the private houses, but also
in the inns where they stay.5
1 See Mark Pattison, above, p. i.
2 See below in chapter xi. for an account of those most in vogue.
sBosweirs Life of Johnson, April 7, 1778. 4Ibid. May 8, 1781.
5 John Bailey, Dr. Johnson and his circle, Home University Library [? 1913], p.
27, ch. i.
6 PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE.
But if the support given to good writers and to books of piety
be not sufficient testimony to the character of the age, it may per
haps be allowed to point to the work done in the cause of popular
education throughout the eighteenth century. Mr. Pattison might
very well be expected to join in approval of this attempt to edu
cate and thus to raise the lower classes. It is quite fair to suppose
that education would have been to him a sacred cause. It is true
that the charity schools of the period only taught as best they
could the rudiments of education, to read, write, and cypher. It
does not matter if the motives attributed to the founders of these
charity schools be misunderstood and that " there is in all alike
evinced more of patronage than of sympathy".1 The main aim
certainly was to bring up the children in the practice of the
Christian Religion, and thus to diminish vice and immorality in
the land, a result which might not be displeasing even to a writer
in the Westminster Review, though the founders of charity schools
certainly did not look forward to the time when the name of God
should never be mentioned in their schools, as the practice is in the
State-supported schools of France at the present day.
It was indeed a great work, a credit to any century, to have
built up out of nothing a system of elementary schools stretching
into very nearly every parish in England and Wales, and not merely
to have spread this network over the land but to have kept it
working throughout the century, and beyond.
There is another claim that may be made in favour of the eigh
teenth century : the establishment of the two great Church Societies,
the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge and the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign Parts. These two
Societies were founded one immediately before, the other immedi
ately after, the year 1 700. And once set on foot, they continued
their work all through the eighteenth century, so that they neither
wanted funds nor men with which to carry on what was begun.
An age steeped in vice and indifference would never have steadfastly
gone on with the charity schools and the great societies, even if
perchance it had found them ready to its hand.
There can be" little doubt that Walpole and the Whigs did do
1 Westminster Review, 1873, vol. xliii. N.S. p. 454, in an article on Charity Schools.
The Religious Societies in England were great supporters of charity schools. A glance
at the occupations of members in ch. ix. p. 295, will show that they came from the same
class that charity schools were to benefit.
PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE. 7
the best by their appointments to the higher offices of the Church,
intentionally or by force of circumstances, to promote a degradation
of faith and morals. Their bishops were so taken up with proclaim
ing the Whig dogma of civil and religious liberty that they had no
time for preaching the Gospel. Had the Apostles been Broad-
Churchmen the world would never have been converted. The
hope of accumulating a great fortune, and leaving a fine estate,
as in the notorious case of Watson, also filled their minds. This
design to injure Christianity was perceived by the public in Hoadly's
promotions. A journalist writes :
I believe, the best Method that could be found, to plant Infidelity in
a Nation, would be to bring immoral Men into the upper Dignities of a
National Church. If we should see a Prelate grasping after Pluralities,
spend his Time in cringing to the Great, in Hopes of a good Translation,
and resigning all his Interest in Heaven, in order to get an exorbitant
Interest for his Money here upon Earth, if we should see him entring into
Projects with Usurers and Stockjobbers, and mount into a pulpit, perhaps,
once a Year, to preach, and use these Words of our Saviour, My Kingdom
is not of this World, would not the Indignation of the People be provoked
against so impudent an Impostor ? *
Hoadly was not respected even by those who gave him pro
motion, such as King George the Second.2
The antagonism between the Whig and the Churchman is dis
closed by the Spectator who makes the Hen-peck't husband com
plain that
tho' I am one of the warmest Churchmen in the Kingdom, I am
forced to rail at the Times, because she [the wife] is a violent Whig.3
The gluttony at the Whig episcopal tables must have been
disgusting. Thomas Pyle has left us some account of Hoadly's
manner of living in 1752 at Winchester House, Chelsea.
Such easiness, such plenty, & treatment so liberal, was never my lot
before, and if God gives me health you can't think of a happier man.
The danger I apprehend most is from the table, which is both plenti
ful & elegant. But I think I shall by use, not be in more peril from my
Lord's ten dishes than I was formerly from my own two, for I begin
1 Select Letters taken from Fog's Weekly Journal, London, 1732, vol. ii. p. 182.
2 See the savage opinion of him expressed by the King in 1735. (John, Lord Hervey,
Memoirs of the Reign of George II. London, John Murray, 1848, ed. J. W. Croker,
vol. ii. p. 47.)
3 Spectator, No. 176, Friday, September 21, 1711.
8 PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE.
already £to find that a fine dinner every day is not such a perpetual tempta
tion as I thought it would be.1
Mrs. Montagu says of the sumptuous fare of an Archbishop of
York, Dr. John Gilbert, who died in 1761, that he " feeds more like
a pig of Epicurus than the head of a Christian Church ".2
For this gluttony they had not even the excuse of being teeto
tallers, who are commonly gross feeders, by way of compensation
for the loss of other stimulant.
An unenviable memory of both Hoadly and Gilbert has been
preserved in the Dunciad^ the former directly, the latter from the
explanation of the commentators. Hoadly has a couple of lines to
himself, as receiving the homage of two notorious freethinkers :
Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer,
Yet silent bow'd to Christ's No Kingdom here?
While Gilbert is complimented on the extreme dulness of his
sermons which compels a yawn :
Churches and Chapels instantly it reached ;
St. James's first, for leaden Gilbert preach'd.4
It is admitted that Gilbert had few or no qualifications for his
high office.5
The complete indifference to religion, which some writers would
have us believe was spread over all England in the first half of the
eighteenth century, is tested by what is known as the Bangorian
controversy. This resistance to Hoadly has left an indelible
mark upon English letters. Against Hoadly the wrath of Church
men burst forth in a flood of pamphlets,6 eagerly bought up. The
pamphlet of Dr. Andrew Snape went through some fifteen editions
at least on its first appearance. Above all others, William Law up
held Church principles in such a way that Hoadly durst not attempt
to answer him. Dr. Thomas Sherlock suggests that there can be
1 Albert Hartshorne, Memoirs of a Royal Chaplain, London, John Lane, 1905,
Letter lix. p. 178. The whole letter may be read as giving some idea of the tone of the
circle in which it is written.
2 Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Bluestockings, ed. Emily J. Climenson,
Murray, 1906, vol. ii. p. 191.
3 A. Pope, Dunciad, Book ii. line 400. 4 ibid. Book iv. line 608.
5 See D.N.B. under John Gilbert.
6 There is an enormous bibliography in the folio edition of Benjamin Hoadly's Works.
(London, Horsfield, 1773, vol. ii. p. 379.)
PIETY AND MORALITY AMONGST THE PEOPLE. 9
but one good reason why Hoadly did not answer Law : because
that he could not.
When the controversy was at its height the excitement in the
City was so great that it is said business was at a standstill.1 This
should be noticed, for it is inconsistent with the assumption that
the age in which such strong feeling was expressed was an age of
indifference to all religious opinions and practices. The present
age would hardly feel so much upon a matter of doctrine.
White Kennett, the friend and champion of Hoadly, writing in
1716 soon after the accession of King George the First to some
correspondent in America, confesses that Church principles were
extraordinarily widespread. He complains that :
before those civil Wars, none ran into those Notions but some of the
warmer and ambitious Clergy ; whereas now the common People and the
very Women had their Heads full of them.2
Herring, Archbishop of York and later of Canterbury, belongs
to the same class as Hoadly and Kennett. Swift speaks of him in
these words : " so stupid, so injudicious, and so prostitute a divine ".3
Dom Prosper Gueranger says of Antoine Malvin de Montazet, that
with him heresy sat in the metropolitical chair of Lyons ; 4 it may
also be said that with Herring heresy sat in the primatial chair of
Canterbury. The following letter of his to the Dean of Canterbury
may enable us to form some judgement of the character of the
man.
.i. Archbishop Herring to the Dean of Canterbury.
Dear Mr Dean.
I had a Request communicated to me to Day of a very singular
Nature : and it comes from the Ambassador of a great Catholic Prince.
Arch Bishop Anselm, it seems, lies buried in our Cathedral and the King
of Sardinia has a great Desire to be possess'd of his Bones, or Dust & Coffin.
It seems he was of the Country of Oost, [read Aosta] the Bishop of which
has put this Desire into the King's Head, who, by the by, is a most pro
digious Bigot, and in a late Dispute with Geneva gave up Territory to redeem
an old Church. You will please to consider this Request with your Friends
1 Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, x. 31,
Smith Elder & Co., 1902, 3rd ed. vol. ii. p. 156.
2 The life of the Right Reverend Dr. White Kennett, London, Billingsley, 1730,
p. 125.
3 Jonathan Swift, Intelligencer, No. III. in Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh,
1814, vol. ix. p. 298.
4 P. Gueranger, Institutions liturgiques, ch. xxiii. Le Mans and Paris, 1841, t. ii.
p. 569.
1(5 THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL.
but not yet capitularly. You will believe I have no great Scruples on this
Head, but if I had I would get rid of them all if the parting with the rotten
Remains of a rebel to his King, a Slave to the Popedom & an Enemy
to the married Clergy (all this Anselm was) would purchase Ease and Indul
gence to one living Protestant. It is believed, that a Condescension in
this Business may facilitate the way of doing it to thousands. I think it
is worth the Experiment, & really for this End, I should make no Con
science of palming on the Simpletons any other old Bishop with the Name
of Anselm.
I pray God send you and yours many happy new Years . . .
Your affectionate Friend. [T. Cant.]
Lambeth House
Decr. 23, 1752.!
But England had no monopoly of indifferent bishops. If we
look across the Channel, the eighteenth century bishops in France
were not all of them models of sanctity. There are Cardinal Dubois,
Archbishop of Cambray ; Francis de Harlay, Archbishop of
Paris ; Arthur Dillon, Archbishop of Narbonne ; Maurice de
Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun ; though it is our duty to remember
" Marseille's good bishop," Monseigneur de Belsunce, and his de
votion to his flock in the plague-stricken city.
THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL.
That there were bad clergymen in the eighteenth century no one
is prepared to deny. That they were all bad is another proposition
which can be readily refuted. But it is, nevertheless, a welcome
change to turn from the consideration of characters like Burnet,2
or Hoadly, or Herring, or Watson, and to speak of the more admir
able characters among the clergy and laity of our period. Some
will be remembered as long as the English Church shall last. Such
were Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, the confessor
fined and imprisoned by the civil power for his maintenance of
Church discipline, though it is only fair to add that King George
the First ordered his release, offered him the Bishopric of Exeter
1 Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, vol. i. Historical Manuscripts
Commission, 1901, p. 226.
2 Burnet's inaccuracy was detected in his own time. He is coupled with another
unsatisfactory Episcopal character, the Coadjutor of Paris. " I leave those ecclesiastical
heroes of their own romances — De Retz and Burnet." (John, Lord Hervey, Memoirs
of the Reign of George II. , edited by J. W. Croker, London, John Murray, 1848, vol. i.
P. 3.)
THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL. 1 1
as compensation, and wished to pay his law expenses from his privy
purse.1
Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, the philosopher who beat
back the attacks of the Deists upon the Christian position, will be
remembered so long as man is a rational animal.
George Berkeley was another Christian philosopher, Bishop ot
Cloyne in Ireland, of whom Atterbury said :
So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and
such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but angels,
'till I saw this gentleman.2
Pope says of Berkeley, in the epilogue to his Satires when he
would not, it might be supposed, be in a complimentary humour :
Manners with Candour are to Benson giv'n,
To Berkeley, ev'ry Virtue under Heav'n.3
While Swift speaks of him as indifferent to all that the common
man holds most dear :
He is an absolute philosopher with regard to money, titles, and power.4
Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, one of our very best
Church historians, is not to be forgotten. With him, though not a
bishop, deserves to be commemorated that wonderful young man,
Henry Wharton, whose early death deprived the Church of Eng
land of so much knowledge.
But of course the High Churchmen were called names. Hor
ace Walpole talks of " Seeker, the Jesuitical bishop of Oxford,"
and compares him with " Sherlock who has much better sense, and
much less of the popish confessor".5 And to show how very like
the abuse of one century is to that of another, it may be well to
quote the following lines which might be readily equalled from the
speeches or pamphlets delivered against the Tractarians in their
early days.
For this, Seditious Spirits in disguise
Swarm in the Church, tho' they that Church despise :
1 Thomas Wilson, Works, ed. C. Cruttwell, 2nd ed. 1782, London, Dilly, vol. i.
PP- 29, 32.
2 See a note in John Hughes, Letters by Several Eminent Persons deceased,
London, J. Johnson, 1772, vol. ii. p. 3, note.
3 A. Pope, Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue II. line 72.
4 Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. C. Eraser, Oxford, 1901, vol. iv. p. 344.
5 Letters of Horace Walpole . . . to Sir Horace Mann, London, 1833, 2nd ed.
vol. ii. p. 353, April 2, 1750.
12 THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL.
Loudly they boast her Ancient Rights and Fame,
Whilst underhand they play a Popish Game.
The Seed of Loyola with Artful Pains
First fixt this High-Church Poyson in our Veins,
Infecting too, too many of our Youth,
Who, blindly led, fell from the Cause of Truth.1
William Jones of Nayland who died in 1800, William Stevens,
a layman, who died in 1807, and Dr. George Home, Bishop of
Norwich, who died in 1792, form a group of eminent Churchmen
who should always be remembered for their maintenance of
Church principles. Jones of Nayland was most active in his en
deavour to diffuse Church teaching through the press. His works,
collected after his death by his friend William Stevens, run to
twelve volumes octavo.
About 1792 he formed a short-lived Society for the Reformation of
Principles by appropriate literature. Its only results were the foundation
of the * British Critic,' of which, however, Jones was neither editor nor con
tributor, and the publication of a collection of tracts called * The Scholar
Armed against the Errors of the Time' (1792) which is still of use to
young students of divinity.2
It passed through several editions and it contained Law's un
answerable letters to Hoadly, Charles Leslie's tracts, and other
valuable matter.
Much at the same time we may notice the activities of Dr.
Samuel Horsley, Bishop successively of St. David's, Rochester, and
St. Asaph. His churchmanship is well known and he warmly com
mended the Scottish Liturgy of 1764 which has the reputation of
being the best liturgy in the English language. There is also con
temporary with the Bishop, Dr. Charles Daubeny, Archdeacon of
Salisbury in 1803, who was much interested in the prosperity of
the Scottish Episcopal Church. He maintained the doctrine that
the Church was a society founded by Our Lord and possessed all
his authority. Protesting against a book of the Evangelical Calvin-
istic School he says that Mr. Overton should have called his book
An Apology for those Regular Clergy of the Establishment, who main
tain the Articles of the Church of England to be Calvinistic, in opposition
to the great body of the Clergy who do not see them in that light.3
1 The Seditious Insects : or, the Levellers assembled in Convocation, London,
Bragg, 1708, p. 7.
aJD JVJ3. under William Jones of Nayland.
3 Charles Daubeny, Vindicice Ecclesice Anglicana, London, 1803, p. viii.
THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL. 13
He claims that the bulk ot the English Clergy are not Calvinists.
John Randolph, Bishop of London, did a great service to the
Church by his assistance in founding the National Society in 1811.
Dr. Thomas Sikes, who took his degree from Pembroke College,
Oxford, in 1788, was brought over from Evangelicalism by the
study of Thorndike and was " especially regarded by Pusey as a
precursor of the Oxford movement ",1 With Sikes, Norris of Hack
ney should be associated, and be remembered for his share in
founding the National Society.
Charles Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford, who died in 1829, laid the
foundation of the liturgical school which is now so flourishing in
the Church of England. I have been sometimes tempted to think
that he was the editor of the 1818 reprint of the first Edwardine
Communion Office. It might have been put out for the use of his
pupils. In 1829 it is suggested by William Dealtry that Liturgies
being so ancient in the Church of Christ it is highly probable that
the original forms were delivered to the several churches by the
apostles.2 And as early as 1795 the sources of the Prayer Book in
the ancient Liturgies were well understood.
The first edition of Sir William Palmer's book, Origines Litur-
gicce, was published during our period, in 1832, and its influence was
immediately felt, for it is perceptible in Montagu Robert Melville's
project for a reformed book of Common Prayer, published in 1834.
This latter recommends the revival of oil for the sick, non-communi
cating attendance, preaching in the surplice, copes in parish churches,
and he gives other directions on unimportant points, that might
perhaps have been spared.
Of the laymen of our period, we may well be proud. We can
count up Hamon L'estrange, John Evelyn, Robert Boyle, Robert
Nelson, John Byrom, Samuel Johnson, William Stevens, Alexander
Knox, Joshua Watson, William Wordsworth.
There are two works, distinctly orthodox and catholic, which from
the moment of their appearance have been welcomed by Churchmen
as conveying the true teaching of the Church of England on
Divinity and Liturgy. One is Pearson on the Creed, the other is
Wheatly's Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer.
These have gone through edition after edition, which fact is no
P- 257
1 H. P. Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Longmans, 1893, 2nd ed. vol. i.
57-
2 William Dealtry, The Excellence of the Liturgy, London, Hatchard, 1829, p. 22.
14 THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL.
small testimony to their value in the eyes of Church people. Should
anyone deny that the tone prevailing in the Church of England
was orthodox, he can be answered by pointing to the insistence by
bishops on the study of these manuals as preparation for orders.
Pearson on the Creed was issued in 1659 and from the day of
its publication it has been reckoned the soundest exposition of the
faith of the Church of England. It has been the manual which ex
aminers have placed in the hands of candidates for the priesthood
throughout our period. In the same way, Wheatly was the text
book recommended on the Book of Common Prayer and Liturgies.
Besides the British Critic, the periodicals supported by Church
men at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth
centuries were not wanting in a good tone. The Orthodox Church-
mans Magazine will be quoted below as approving of prayers for
the faithful departed, the keeping of Lent and of Fridays, the arrange
ment of churches as followed in ancient times,1 and the like. The
Anti-jacobin Review praises a writer because
His ideas of Church government are founded on the ecclesiastical
polity of Hooker ; and his belief in the Saviour of the World corresponds
with the catholic faith of George Bull.2
And a preacher who at the consecration of a church warned his
hearers against any superstitious reverence for places of worship
is criticised thus :
If this could be proved, we presume that, by parity of reason, it could
also be proved, that the consecration of the elements in our two sacra
ments, the imposition of the Bishop's hands in confirmation and ordin
ation, the deep and interesting circumstances of absolution and benediction,
whatever was the case formerly, now pretend to no more than being
merely the suggestions of human prudence.3
Much later than these was the British Magazine^ which first began
as a periodical with a Church bias in 1832.
Almost the last of the sound divines of our period was Martin
Joseph Routh, who was president of Magdalen College, Oxford, from
1791 till his death in 1854. To him Cardinal Newman, early in the
Tractarian Movement and while he was still fierce against Rome,
dedicated a book as to one " Who has been reserved to report to a
forgetful generation what was the theology of their fathers".4
1 See below, pp. 331, 220, 148. * Anti-jacobin Review and Magazine, 1799,
vol. i. p. 398. 3ibid. 1799, vol. ii. p. 411.
4 J. H. Newman, Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, Rivingtons, 1837,
Dedication.
THE OLD HIGH CHURCH SCHOOL. 15
Yet he was hardly separated by a generation from divines like
Horsley, Home, Daubeny, and Jones of Nayland, and laymen like
Joshua Watson and William Stevens, though their teaching seemed
all forgotten by the officials in 1837. Very well could it be said
that Routh was reserved "to a forgetful generation ". It was indeed
a forgetful age, if not an ignorant one. Mr. Lathbury, dealing with
the pronouncements made by the bishops during the Tractarian
Movement, points out the disasters which their forgetfulness or
worse, made them bring upon the Church.
Unhappily, ignorance is a great provocative of speech, and the Bishops
went on for three whole years delivering Charges which showed that they
knew nothing of the great Anglican Divines, and very little of the Anglican
Prayer Book.1
Of the state of the Church party as it was called at the end of
our period we have the evidence of Dr. Church, the late Dean of St.
Paul's, that in it was nothing effeminate, nothing fanatical, nothing
foolish ; but it was manly. He writes :
At the end of the first quarter of the century, say about 1825-30, two
characteristic forms of Church of England Christianity were popularly re
cognised. One inherited the traditions of a learned and sober Anglicanism,
claiming as the authorities for its theology the great line of English divines
from Hooker to Waterland, finding its patterns of devotion in Bishop
Wilson, Bishop Home, and the " Whole Duty of Man," but not forgetful
of Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, and Ken — preaching, without passion or ex
citement, scholarlike, careful, wise, often vigorously reasoned discourses on
the capital points of faith and morals, and exhibiting in its adherents, who
were many and important, all the varieties of a great and far-descended
school, which claimed for itself rightful possession of the ground which it
held. There was nothing effeminate about it, as there was nothing fana
tical; there was nothing extreme or foolish about it; it was a manly
school.2
* * *
The custom of daily service and even of fasting was kept up more
widely than is commonly supposed. The Eucharist, though sparingly
administered, and though it had been profaned by the operation of the
Test Acts, was approached by religious people with deep reverence.3
Thus we come to the last years of our period, of which we have
been so often told that it was the dark age of the Church of Eng
land. Yet the outline drawn by the late Dean of St. Paul's is not
1 D. C. Lathbury, Dean Church, 1905, ch. iv. p. 53.
2R. W. Church, The Oxford Movement, Macmillan, 1891, ch. i. p. 8.
sibid. p. 9.
1 6 THE NONJURORS.
so gloomy. And there must have been, hidden away in manor
houses and country rectories, much of the teaching of the divines
of the Restoration. Thus we read that
Of Keble himself it has been said that the highest praise which he
seemed able to give to any theological statement was, " It seems to me
just what my father taught me ".*
And Pusey wrote :
I was educated in the teaching of the Prayer Book. . . . The doct
rine of the Real Presence I learnt from my mother's explanation of the
Catechism, which she had learned to understand from older clergy.2
THE NONJURORS.
Amongst those who helped to carry on the teaching of the
school of Thorndike and Hammond the Nonjurors must not be for
gotten. They, and those who sympathised with them, may be
reckoned under several headings. The great bulk of the people, as
Dr. Johnson testifies,3 were at heart with the King over the water,
until the accession of King George the Third extinguished Jaco-
bitism. But the people had not to take the oaths ; and so long as
they lived peaceably and sought no office, they were not troubled.
They attended the services of the Church of England without
scruple.
Some of the local newspapers contain announcements such as
the following :
On Sunday the 8th of last Month [1745] died, after a lingering illness,
at his House in Oxford, Mr. Leake, a Gentleman of Nonjuring Principles,
but a constant Attendant upon the Service of the Church of England.4
He would be a specimen of a class loyal to the Church of Eng
land, but unable to swallow the extravagant oath of 1715.
But those who were more active may be divided thus :
i. A class who shamelessly took the oaths of allegiance to the
Government, and then began immediately to practise against it.
Of this Atterbury is a notorious example.
ii. A class who refused the oaths, but continued to communicate
at the altars of the Church of England. Such were Frampton,
1 Walter Lock, John Keble, Methuen, 1893, p. 81.
2 H. P. Liddon, Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey, Longmans, 1893, 2nd ed. vol.
i. p. 7.
*BoswelVs Life of Johnson, September 17, 1777.
4 Bath Journal, 1745, vol. ii. 115.
THE NONJURORS. 17
Ambrose Bonwicke, William Law. These I would call conforming
Nonjurors.
iii. A class who refused the oaths and formed a separate com
munion. These I have ventured to call Dissenting Nonjurors.
Such were Hickes, Leslie, Spinckes, Collier, and Deacon. These
must not be cited as witnesses to the teaching of the Church of
England. But their writings and their practices had great influence
on churchmen down to, and even beyond, the end of the century.
For example, in the Orthodox Churchman's Magazine, Charles
Leslie's works are warmly recommended, and the writer is happy
to see that the works of Hickes and Leslie "are daily rising in
value and are sought after with the greatest avidity ".* And in
1832, just before the end of our period, the University of Oxford,
then an integral part of the Church of England, republished the
Theological Works of Charles Leslie, in seven volumes octavo.
They were evidently highly thought of; for Dr. Home, Bishop of
Norwich, is ready to allow that Leslie
is said to have brought more persons, from other persuasions, into the
Church of England, than any man ever did.2
And recommending books the same bishop says :
The first shall be, the inimitable Mr. Leslie's Short and easy Method
with the Deists?
And Jones of Nayland speaks in much the same way :
Many years ago, that excellent Controversialist, Mr. Charles Leslie,
published his Short Method with the Deists*
In the same strain a Dissenting Nonjuror asserts that Leslie's
writings against the Quakers and Deists had brought many of these
into the Church of England.
And in that very Year was born the Reverend Mr. Charles Lesley, whom
GOD was pleased to make His Instrument, immediately and mediately of
Converting above 20,000 of them from Quakerism, Arianism, and Socin-
ianism?
1 Orthodox Churchman's Magazine, 1804, vol. vii. p. 37.
2 George Home, The Duty of Contending for the Faith, S.P.C.K. 1787, new ed.
p. 18, note.
3 George Home, An Apology for certain Gentlemen in the University of Oxford, in
Works, ed. by William Jones, London, Rivingtons, 1818, vol. iv. p. 179.
4 William Jones of Nayland, A short way to truth: or the Christian Doctrine of a
Trinity in Unity, in Works, Rivingtons, 1801, vol. i. p. 335.
5 A letter . . . concerning the validity of Lay-Baptism, London, Minors, 1738,
p. 47, by Philalethes, [who seems to be the Hon. Archibald Campbell].
2
1 8 THE NONJURORS.
This statement must be meant to apply to conversion to the
Established Church ; for the members of the Dissenting Nonjuring
communities, all added together, would not have reached anything
like 20,000 in number. Deacon's congregation at Manchester
was reckoned by Thomas Percival at " about twenty before the late
Hurry," that is the rising of 1745, " and now perhaps not above
sixty".1 Also a sympathetic writer thinks it certain that it "never
exceeded a few score ".2
Like his brother Bishop, Dr. Samuel Horsley recommends the
works of " the celebrated Charles Leslie," 8 whom he classes with
Hooker.
Hickes' Devotions passed through many editions until 1765, and
the editor says he did not intend them for use in his own small
community only. They must have been used largely by members
of the Church of England. The same may be said of Spinckes'
Sick Man Visited, the sixth edition of which appeared in 1775.
It is at Manchester that we see at its highest the influence of
the Dissenting Nonjuror upon the members of the Church of Eng
land. We shall notice below 4 how Dr. Deacon, the Bishop among
the Nonjurors, secured the support of the clergy of the Collegiate
Church and of their people. Naturally the Whig Presbyterians
took advantage of such an opportunity, and they ridiculed the
clergy in the following dialogue between True-blew who appears to
be a layman, a member of the Established Church of England,
not a Dissenting < Nonjuror, and Whiglove, who, assuming that
True-blew is a Protestant, is met thus:
Mr. ^rue-blew.] A Protestant, Sir ; no Sir, I disdain the Name ;
Christian is my Name, and Catholick my Sirname.5 I am neither Papist,
Presbyterian, Lutheran, nor Low-Churchman ; but I am of the pure
Church of England, as it stands in her Liturgies; and would have her
Discipline kept up, as in the four first Centuries.
Mr. ftftkigtove.] What, Sir, are you a Deaconist.
Mr. T. A Deaconist — no — I can't say — quite — a Deaconist — neither,
— but I think Dr. Deacon a very worthy, religious, pious Man ; and I
think if we took in some, or indeed most Part, of his Alterations in
1 [Thomas Percival,] Manchester Politics, London, Robinson, 1748, p. 12.
2 Henry Broxap, A Biography of Thomas Deacon, Manchester, 1911, p. 100.
3 Samuel Horsley, Charge . . . in the year 1790, Gloucester, Robson, 1791, p. 38.
4 See chapter vi. p. 179.
5 This is a quotation from Thomas Deacon's Reply to Conyers Middleton, but
Percival apparently does not know that the saying comes from the Fathers. (Pacianus,
Epistola I. § iv. ; Migne, P.L. XIII. 1055.)
THE NONJURORS. 19
Principles, Discipline, and Practice, it would not be amiss ; and I daresay the
stanches t Part of the Clergy of the Church of England would be of my Mind.1
Thomas Percival writes to the Clergy of the Collegiate Church
thus:
But instead of preaching and writing against this Man's [Deacon's]
Doctrines, and defending your Church, you keep Company with him,
publicly praise him, as a good worthy Man, recommend him to all your
friends as a Physician, nay some of you, if the World does not greatly bely
you, had a hand in this very Catechism.
* *
Are you not convinced that above one half of your own Congregation
have the Doctor 's Catechism and Prayer- Book in their Houses ?
* * *
" 'Tis pious and religious to have decent Ceremonies in the Church,
and I could wish we might borrow so far of the Armenians, (for I would
not be said to borrow of the Doctor] as to have the Kiss of Peace and the
noble and grand Habits of the Priests introduced into our Church. . . ." 2
Then Colley Cibber in his play, written expressly to attack the
Nonjurors, yet gives testimony, unwittingly, to their character and
teaching : it is not at all clear whether he is writing of the con
forming, or of the dissenting, Nonjuror; or of both. It is very
likely that Colley Cibber did not distinguish between the two wings
of the Nonjurors.
'Tis true, name to him 'but Rome or Popery, he startles, as at a Monster :
but gild its grossest Doctrines with the Stile of English Catholic, he
swallows down the Poison, like a Cordial.3
In another place he makes the Nonjuror claim that
He is a true stanch Member of the English Catholic church.4
Nor does he make them out to be hypocrites :
Most of your Non-jurors now are generally People of a free and open
Disposition, mighty Pretenders to a Conscience of Honour indeed ; but you
seldom see them put on the least Shew of Religion.5
Many have blamed the Nonjurors for an over-scrupulous con
science. It does not become us in the present age to blame them,
when the trouble with us is to find among ecclesiastics any rudi
ments of a conscience forbidding their taking any oaths or engage-
1 Manchester Politics. A Dialogue between Mr. True-blew and Mr. Whiglove,
London, Robinson, 1748, p. 17. This is attributed to Thomas Percival, the Antiquary.
2 [Thomas Percival,] Letter to the . . . Clergy of . . . Manchester, London,
1748, pp. 7, 9, 24.
3 Colley Cibber, The Nonjuror, Act v. Sc. i. Dramatic Works, London, 1760, vol.
in. p. 359.
*ibid. Act ii. p. 302. -Hbid. p. 305.
2 *
20 THE NONJURORS.
ments whatever ; and when obedience to authority has become
nearly everywhere an extinct virtue. Further it must be remem
bered what the oath was that the Nonjurors were required to take.
It is as follows :
1 do solemnly and sincerely Declare, That I >do believe in my Con
science, that the Person pretended to be Prince of Wales . . . hath not
any Right or Title whatsoever to the Crown of this Realm, or any other
the Dominions thereto belonging.1
There must be many persons, even in the present day, who could
not possibly take such an oath as this : men ready to swear a joyful
allegiance to the present Royal Family and Government, but who
could not aver that the son of a father had no right to his throne ; still
less that in the bottom of his heart he believed no such right to exist.
And so a cry went up against the tyranny of the Whigs :
My Lord, if it must be so, let us submit to the Will of God ! but let us
rather chuse to be STARV'D, then to be DAMN'D.
He adds that their enemies cast it in their teeth that
" . . . the Clergy, rather than keep up to their Old Doctrines which they
taught us ; rather than they will suffer any Thing themselves, they will swear
that they Believe that Snow is black, and there cannot be an Oath invented,
that the Clergy will not take"
And from hence it is, that we are thus despised in the World.2
The position of the Nonjurors was indeed a most difficult one.
To refuse the oath was financial ruin to most of them. But unless
one believed in the right of Parliament 3 to insist on any oath, how
ever contrary to fact, how could the oath be taken ?
The character of the Dissenting Nonjurors, who have been accused
of peculiarly vile and detestable offences against morals, is now at
last being cleared. A Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, in
the nineteenth century writes :
Perhaps too the time has come when one may venture, without offence
or loss of intellectual caste, to challenge the vulgar verdict upon the non-
jurors ; and may at least call on their censors to name any English sect as
eminent, in proportion to its numbers, alike for solid learning, and for
public as well as private virtues.4
1 10 Geo. I. Sess. 2. cap. xiii. in Enactments in Parliament, ed. by L. L. Shadwell,
Oxford Historical Society, lix. 1912, vol. ii. p. 2.
2 The Clergy' 's Tears : or, a Cry against Persecution . . . in our present great Dis
tress and Danger, 1715, pp. 8 and n.
3 It is not easy to explain why Milton, who was so strong a Parliamentarian, should
have told us that the first Parliament of all was held in Pandemonium.
4 Preface by John E. B. Mayor, p. viii. to the Life of Ambrose Bonwicke by his
father, Cambridge, 1870.
CHAPTER II.
THE EUCHARIST.
DURING the evil days of the Great Rebellion, it was part of the
policy of those in power to discourage the celebration of the
Eucharist. It is said that during this time communion had been
discontinued for years in many parishes in England. A Fellow of
Magdalen, preaching before the University of Oxford in 1679,
before an audience which would from personal knowledge be able to
check an inexact statement, spoke as follows :
Those Intruders, who called themselves the University of Oxon. from
the bloudy and fatal year of 1648, to the King's happy restoration, did not
think fit so much as once to celebrate the communion together in this
Church, [St. Mary's] and a publick Sacrament was not seen in several
College Chapels during the same space of time.1
And another witness, Dr. Thomas Comber, afterwards Dean
of Durham, writes about the same time :
if we consider how terribly this Sacrament was represented, [i.e. put before
the people] and how generally it was layd aside in the late times, we might
wonder how Monthly Communions should be so well attended on by the
people as they are.2
Thus at the Restoration, with a population unaccustomed to
approach the Holy Table, even at Easter, it was exceedingly uphill
work to carry out the Church's intention of a celebration on every
day for which a collect, epistle, and gospel were provided.
But in spite of this, there is evidence that in some parishes in
large towns there was not only a monthly, but even a weekly, cele
bration immediately after the Restoration. Annand is giving advice
to the communicant to receive Holy Communion " as often as pro
vidence shall put a fair opportunity in thy hand ". But he adds :
1 Thomas Smith, A Sermon about Frequent Communion, Preached before the Uni
versity of Oxford, August the iyth 1679. London, S. Smith, 1685, p. 33.
2 The Remains of Denis Granville, etc., Surtees Society,ji865, vol. xlvii. p. 86, The
letter is dated October 15, 1681.
21
22 FREQUENCY OF THE EUCHARIST.
" This case alwayes holds not in great Parishes where possibly
the Communion may be celebrated every Sabbath [? every week]
or every moneth "-1
Thus immediately after the Restoration there would seem to
have been a possibility, or more, in large parishes, of the Eucharist
being celebrated once a week.
So doubtless by way of encouragement of more frequent Com
munion the Convocation of York decided in 1661 to address this
question to the Convocation of Canterbury :
Were it not expedient that the holy eucharist were celebrated upon all
such dales as it is required ? 2
By " required " may be meant required by the Book of Common
Prayer, or required by a group of the faithful who desired to com
municate.3
In the Northern Province one of the most active of the clergy
in promoting a weekly celebration of the Eucharist in Cathedral
and Collegiate Churches was Dr. Denis Granville, Archdeacon and
afterwards Dean of Durham. But he had all the dead weight
of years of puritan neglect to overcome, before people could be
brought to consider Communion as an ordinary Christian duty.
He did his best to induce the authorities in Cathedral and Colle
giate Churches to establish at least a weekly Eucharist in accordance
with the rubric. This he urges upon Dr. Fell, the Bishop of Oxford ; *
and Dr. Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury ; 5 and he rejoices when
his plan succeeds at Canterbury 6 and York, and in Dr. Beveridge's
Parish Church.7
This was St. Peter's Cornhill, where the weekly celebration
lasted till well into the coming century. It is said that
Dr. Beveridge his devout practice and order in his church, doth ex
ceedingly edify the city, and his congregation encreases every week : he
1 William Annand, Fides Catholica, London, Brewster, 1661, p. 448.
2 The Records of the Northern Convocation, Surtees Society, 1907, vol. cxiii. p. 320.
3 Private communions were asked for. At Stepney in 1605 it was agreed that the
vicar should provide bread and wine for the communion, " Except any private persons
shall request an extraordinary Comunion at an extraordinary tyme, as when they go
to sea or otherwise, for which at their owne proper chardges they are to fynd bread and
wyne ". (G. W. Hill and W. H. Frere, Memorials of Stepney Parish, Guildford,
1890-91, p. 52.)
4 Miscellanea : comprising the works and letters of Dennis Granville, etc., Surtees
Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 171.
5 ibid. pp. 174, 211, *ibid. p. 178. 7ibid. p. 174.
FREQUENCY OF THE EUCHARIST. 23
hath seldom less than fourscore, sometime six or seven score communi
cants, and a great many young apprentices, who come there every Lord's
day with great devotion.1
In 1 68 1, Dr. Symon Patrick, being Dean of Peterborough, re
ceived notice that
the Archbishop required that according to the Rubric we should have
a Communion every Sunday in Cathedral Churches ; which I began about
Whitsuntide, and preached several sermons concerning it, persuading to
frequent Communion.2
In his dedication to the Archbishop, Dr. Bancroft, of his book on
frequent communion he alludes to these efforts.
Having endeavoured, with some success, to restore the Weekly Com
munions in that church to which I relate [i.e. Peterborough] ... it was by
your Grace s Fatherly Care, that I was put in mind of this great Duty.3
Dr. Granville also consults Sir William Dugdale, and tells him
that
I have had a very hard game to play, these twenty years (which time I
have been Arch-deacon of Durham) in maintaining the exact order which
Bishop Cosins set on foot here.
And he complains that conformity
hath been very much wounded by the bad example of Cathedrals, who
have (for the most part) authorised the breach of law, in omitting the
weekly celebration of the Eucharist, which hath not been constantly cele
brated on Sundayes in any Cathedrals, but Christ Church, Ely, and
Worcester.
He then asks this great antiquary how long the daily Communion
ordered in Edward VI. 's first book remained ; for he thinks that
people will cease their wonder at a weekly celebration, when they are
convinced that there was a Daily celebration of the Sacrament established
in all Cathedral and Collegiate Churches in the beginning, and never
abolished, but only fain to the ground by the indevotion of the age.4
In fact his zeal in this matter seems never to have flagged while
he remained in England ; as the number of his letters on this subject
testifies.5 His attempts at establishing celebrations of the Eucharist
1 Miscellanea, p. xxxi.
*The Autobiography of Symon Patrick, Oxford, Parker, 1839, p. 99.
3 Symon Patrick, A treatise of the Necessity and Frequency of Receiving the Holy
Communion, London, 1696, fourth edition.
4 Miscellanea, pp. 178, 179. See also pp. xxxi, xxxiii.
5 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. pp. 23, 42, 48,
50, 52, 56, 59, 60, 71, 79, 85, 90, 108, 125.
24 FREQUENCY OF THE EUCHARIST.
every Sunday seems to have met with a certain amount of success, if
not complete. Weekly Communion, before the Revolution, was
habitual with some. We are told by Dr. Thomas Comber, as
follows :
For some of the Laity (particularly the Duchess of Monmouth) do
receive weekly, when they can have the opportunity already.1
Mrs. Godolphin also
rarely missed a Sunday throughout the whole Year, wherein she did not re
ceive the holy Sacrament, if she were in towne and tollerable health 2 . . .
not seldome on the weeke days assisting at one poore creature's or other ; and
when sometymes, being in the Country, or on a Journey, she had not these
oppertunityes, she made use of a devout meditation upon that sacred Mistery,
byway of men tall Communion, soe as she was in a continuall state of pre
paration. And O, with what unspeakable care and niceness did she use to
dress and trim her soul against this Heavenly Banquett ; with what flagran t
devotion at the Altar.
The word ' flagrant ' has here the meaning of * burning '. And
we may note the expression ' mental ' instead of * spiritual ' com
munion. It may be seen that Evelyn used the name of viaticum
for the last communion. Mrs. Godolphin had " received the heavenly
viaticum 3 but the Sunday before," 4 he says in his Diary.
Attempts were not wanting after the Restoration to establish
right teachings upon the place which the Eucharist should hold in
Christian Assemblies, with a more frequent celebration of the
Eucharist, at least once a week.
Thorndike, speaking of the Protestant Reformation, whether in
Scotland or abroad does not appear, says that the Reformation is
thought to be as much characterised by the putting down of the
Eucharist and the setting up of a sermon in its place, as by restoring
communion in both kinds and the use of the vulgar language.
Not so the Church of England : the reformation whereof consisteth in
an order, as well for the celebration of and communion in the eucharist all
Lord's days and festival days, as in putting the service into our mother-
English.5
John Johnson insists upon the Eucharist as the chief act of
1 The Remains of Denis Granville, etc., Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 86.
2 The Life of Mrs. Godolphin by John Evelyn, London, 1888, p. 167.
3 For other instances of the use of this word in our period, see Appendix to this
Chapter, p. 45.
4 The Diary of John Evelyn, 1678, Sept. 9, ed. Bray and Wheatley, Bickers, 1879,
vol. ii. p. 342.
5 Herbert Thorndike, Of the Laws of the Church, Book III. ch. xxv. § 2 in
Theological Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1853, Vol. IV. part ii. p. 581.
DAIL Y CELEBRA TION. 25
Christian worship. In the second chapter of the second part of the
Unbloody Sacrifice, he treats of the Eucharist as the proper Christian
Worship, and the necessity of a frequent Eucharist, and the duty
of private Christians frequently to join the celebrating and receiving
it.1
DAILY CELEBRATION.
Then as to the frequency of celebration. It seems to have been
the belief throughout our period that in primitive times the
Eucharist was everywhere celebrated every day. This is now known
to be a mistaken opinion. For example, in the church of Jerusalem
at the time of the visit of Sylvia, or Etheria, there was no daily
celebration.2 So in the Orthodox Church of the East the Euchar
ist is not now invariably celebrated daily. The late Bishop of
Gibraltar, Dr. W. E. Collins, informed me that even in the great
theological school of the Halke, near Constantinople, there was not
a daily celebration. Mr. Faminski told me that in Russia, the
larger number of parish churches in the country have not a daily
celebration ; but a daily celebration is the usual practice in towns
and cities. And the monks of the Charterhouse, it may be re
membered, had in the middle ages no celebration on week days,
but only on Sundays and holidays.3 This is most likely the earliest
practice of the Christian community.
But it may be desirable to give some evidence of the widespread
existence of the opinion, even if mistaken.
Dr. Brevint, afterwards Dean of Lincoln, seems to have thought
that the Eucharist was to be celebrated daily :
Nevertheless this Sacrifice which by a real Oblation was not to be
offered more than once, is by an Eucharistical and devout Commemoration
to be offered up every day.4
Dr. Comber, later on to be Dean of Durham, says of the primi
tive Christians :
1John Johnson, The Unbloody Sacrifice and Altar, London, Knaplock, 1718, Part
II. ch. ii. p. 93.
2S. Sylviae Aquitanae Peregrinatio, Romae, 1888, ex typis Vaticanis, ed. J. F.
Gamurrini, p. 45.
8 C. le Couteulx, Annales Ordinis Cartusiensis, Monstrolii, 1888, t. i. p. 293 ; t. ii.
P. 515.
4 Dan. Brevint, The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice^ Section VI. § 3, Oxford,
P- 74-
2 6 DAIL Y CELEBRA TION.
their daily or Weekly Communions made it known that there was
then, no solemn Assembly of Christians without it, [the Eucharist] and
every one not under censure was expected to Communicate.1
Dr. Symon Patrick while still a priest writes thus :
After the people contented themselves with receiving every Sunday, at
least ; still the Priests and the Deacons •, and such, as were not entangled in
secular business, continued the ancient custom of receiving the Communion
every day.2
and a little later on :
The Church of Rome hath thus far preserved a right notion of the holy
Communion, as to conceive it to be a part of the daily Service : upon
which the people as you have heard, attended, more or less, for some Ages.3
Inett, who was precentor of Lincoln, and the author of many
popular books of devotion, writes :
Let them remember that the Apostles communicated daily, the Primi
tive Christians weekly.4
Dr. William Lowth, Prebendary of Winchester, and parson of
Buriton with Petersfield, who died in 1732, the father of Robert
Lowth, Bishop of London, wrote quite a sound Tractarian essay on
the Church, in which he says :
As St. Jerome speaks, the Celebration of the Lord's Supper was look'd
upon as a necessary Part of the Christian Worship, which they performed
daily, as we read ver. 46 of this Chapter.5 [Acts ii.]
The frequent if not daily administration of the Eucharist in the
primitive Church was known to the deist Herring, who was Arch
bishop of Canterbury from 1747 to 1757. He says:
In the Beginning of Christianity it was very frequently, if not daily
administered.6
Dr. Seeker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, urging a
more frequent celebration of the Eucharist than prevailed in his
time, says :
1 Thomas Comber, A Companion to the Altar, London, Martyn, 1675, p. 102.
2 Symon Patrick, A Treatise of the Necessity and Frequency of receiving the Holy
Communion, Discourse IT. § vi. fourth edition, London, Meredith, 1696, p. 68.
sibid. Discourse II. § viii. p. 73.
4 John Inett, A guide to the Devout Christian, sec. ed. 1691, p. 263. The first
edition was most likely, judging from the date of the Imprimatur, published in 1687.
5 William Lowth, The Characters of an Apostolical Church fulfilled in the Church
of England, sec. ed. London, Bonwicke, 1722, p. 15.
6 A new form of Common-Prayer, London, Griffiths, 1753, p. 113.
DAIL Y CELEBRA TION. 2 7
In the three first Centuries the Eucharist was everywhere celebrated
weekly, and in many places almost daily.1
It would seem that this really expresses the historical facts.
The opinion is most likely based upon Bingham's statement as to
the frequency of Communion.
But we are assured farther, that in some Places they received the
Communion every Day. ... In the greater Churches probably they had
it every Day, in the lesser only once or twice a week. Carthage seems to
have been one of those Churches which had it every Day from the Time
of Cyprian. For Cyprian and Austin after him speak of it as the custom
of that Church to receive it Daily, unless they were under some such
grievous Sin as separated them.2
Samuel Hardy, whose writings on the Eucharist should not be
forgotten, for he was one of the strongest supporters of the doctrine
of the Eucharist as a material sacrifice in the latter half of the
eighteenth century, says :
There was, however, a Tradition in the Church, that a Daily Celebra
tion of the Eucharist was the Positive Command of Christ ; and we can
trace this through several Centuries — from the Days of Clement to the
Council of Aix la Chapelle?
and in another work :
Many of our learned Men have shown, that the Eucharist made a
part of the Daily Service of the Primitive Church . . . there are not
wanting those who affirm that our Lord commanded a Daily Celebration"
Francis Fox, whose book passed through numerous editions in
the eighteenth century, teaches children thus :
Q. Does our Church intend that the Sacrament should be administered
as often as the Communion-service is read ?
A. I think so, if there be a competent number of devout persons at
Church, desirous to receive it.5
And again :
Thomas Seeker, Eight Charges, London, 1771, p. 62, in the Second Charge,
1741.
2 Joseph Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book XV. Chapter ix.
§ iv. in Works, London, Knaplock, 1726, vol. i. p. 826.
3 Samuel Hardy, The Scripture account of the Nature and Ends of the Holy
Eucharist, London, Benj. White, 1784, p. 481.
4 Samuel Hardy, A new, plain, and scriptural Account of the nature and ends of
the holy Eucharist, London, 1763, p. [xii].
5 Francis Fox, The duty of Public Worship Proved, Section VIII. fifteenth edition,
reprinted, London, Rivingtons, 1806, p. 43.
28 DAIL Y CELEBRA TION.
Q. Is preaching the principal part of public worship ?
A. No ; for the principal parts of public worship are, Confession of
our Sins, Praying to God, Praising Him, and commemorating the Sacrifice
of Christ's death. We ought therefore to go to church as well when there
is no Sermon, as when there is one.1
This edition has been slightly altered from the earlier ; but it
shows that even in the early part of the nineteenth century, the
Eucharistic sacrifice was taught to be a principal part of public
worship, and the teaching thereon strengthened rather than
weakened.
William Law, the Nonjuror who yet did not secede from the
Church of England, teaches us that
we are most of all to desire Prayers, which are offered up at the Altar%
where the Body and Blood of Christ are joined with them.2
A little catechism for children, without date, but printed by
Jacobs, Halifax, and judging by the type, of the latter half of
the eighteenth century, has these questions and answers :
3. What are the chief means of grace ?
The Lord's Supper, Prayer, searching the Scriptures, and Fasting.
4. How often did the first Christians receive the Lord's Supper ?
Every day : it was their daily bread.
5. How often did they join in public prayer ?
Twice a day, as many of them as could.8
When the primitive practice of daily celebration was thus dog
matically taught to children it must have been very firmly believed.
Thus it was recognised that a frequent celebration of the
Eucharist, daily or weekly, was to be aimed at if we followed primi
tive custom. But unhappily neither daily nor weekly celebration
was carried out on any very large scale. The attempts at daily com
munion, it will be regretted, were wholly unsatisfactory.
The first instance in our period of a daily celebration is to be
met with about the year 1694. It was at St. Giles' Cripplegate,
the Vicar of which was then Dr. Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester, who
allowed the use of the church to one Edward Stephens. He gath
ered together a little band of daily communicants, which Dr. Thomas
Smith tells us was made up "of five or six women".4 This daily
1 Francis Fox, op. cit. p. 9.
2 William Law, A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, ed. by J. J.
Trebeck, London, Spottiswoode, 1902, ch. xii. p. 322.
8 Instructions for children, Jacobs, Halifax, no date, p. 5.
4 T. Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1885, vol. i. p. 188.
See below in chapter ix. for details of Stephens' society.
DA1L Y CELEBRA TION. 2 9
celebration began on the Epiphany 1694 and seems to have gone
on for some four years or so; but in 1698 Stephens desired to be
reconciled to the Church of Rome, on his own terms, which were
of course refused. He was very fierce against Popery in 1704, but
his theological position after 1698 is by no means clear. A life of
Stephens, with a full survey of his inconsistencies, changeableness,
and waywardness, has yet to be written.1
Sir George Wheler, the Prebendary of Durham, speaking of the
services in a chapel in a nobleman's house and the duty of the
chaplain daily to recite morning and evening prayers, says :
To which would he add the Communion Service daily at Noon, as the
Church allows, the Worship of God would be daily performed there,
almost entire, according to our Liturgy ; which is the best Form extant.2
A horrible misuse of the practice of daily communion appears
later on. A young Jacobite, named Sheppard, was in 1718 ready
to kill King George the First, and suffer death for it, " the best
preparation for which, he thought, would be the reception of the
Sacrament daily from the hands of a Priest, ignorant of his de
sign".3 Possibly Sheppard was a papist.
Not wholly unlike Edward Stephens is John Henley, of whose
" gilt tub " and pretensions to a primitive Eucharist we are re
minded in the Dunciad.^ He, too, was ordained a clergyman of
the Church of England ; but his eloquence not being sufficiently
appreciated by his superiors, he set up a schismatical meeting house
which he called an Oratory, and for which in 1726 he composed a
liturgy which certainly passed through as many as five editions.
The first rubric is :
Let the Eucharist be, if possible ', celebrated daily, as was the primitive
custom?
Whitefield writes on October n, 1750 describing life at Lady
Huntingdon's :
1 Dr. Philip Bliss gives a list of Stephens' printed works in his edition of Hearne's
Diaries. (Reliquice Hearniance, Oxford, 1857, pp. 59-64.) See also the Cherry and
Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library.
2 [George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery : or, Christian Oeconomicks. Con
taining directions for the Religious Conduct of a Family, 1698, p. 154.
3 John Doran, London in Jacobite Times, London, Bentley, 1877, vol. i. p. 302.
4 A. Pope, Dunciad, Book II. line 2 and note.
5 The Primitive Liturgy and Eucharist . . . for the use of the Oratory, London,
1727, fifth edition, p. 119. The newspapers of the time, e.g. Fog's Journal, contain
advertisements of the services in the Oratory.
30 WEEKL Y CELEBRA TION.
We have the sacrament every morning, heavenly consolation all day,
and preaching at night.1
It would seem, at this time of his life, that he was not living in
schism.
John Wesley records, as on the Christmas day of 1774, though
the entry must have been added later for he speaks of the Twelve
Days of Christmas which end on January 6th, that
During the twelve festival days, we had the Lord's-Supper daily; a
little emblem of the Primitive Church. May we be followers of them in
all things, as they were of Christ ! 2
The allusion to the Primitive Church is no doubt caused by the
belief then so prevalent that the Eucharist in the first centuries
was everywhere celebrated daily, which has been spoken of above.
WEEKLY CELEBRATION.
It should be noticed that these attempts at establishing a daily
celebration in the eighteenth century were connected with schism
from the beginning, and thus doomed to failure. But the efforts
to establish a weekly Eucharist were not so entirely unfruitful. We
have seen the well-meant struggle of Denis Granville at Durham to
procure some observance of the Church's rule that the Eucharist
should be celebrated weekly in cathedral and collegiate churches.
A year or two later after his flight, some scheme for establishing
weekly celebrations in the parish churches of London was evidently
set on foot.
There is an interesting single sheet folio in the British Museum,
the price of which, " the second Impression Corrected and Enlarged,"
was in 1692 a halfpenny; one of its purposes was to point out
"Where you may, in Imitation of the Apostles of our Lord, Every
Lords day partake of the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper ".
The churches with a weekly celebration of the Eucharist were only
10 in number : All Hallows Barking, St. Andrew's Holborn, St.
Giles' Cripplegate, St. Vedast's Foster Lane, St. James' Chapel, St.
Michael's Wood Street, St. Peter's Cornhill, and St. Swithun's
London Stone. All these, with the exception of St. James' Chapel,
were at noon. That at St. James' was at 8 ; and at St. Lawrence
1 L. Tyerman, The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, Hodder and Stoughton,
1877, vol. ii. p. 265.
2 An extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley's Journal, London, Hawes, 1779,
xvii. p. 48.
WEEKL Y CELEBRA TION. 3 1
Guildhall, except the first Sunday in the month, the celebration
was at 6. At St. Martin's in the Fields, except the second Sunday,
it was also at 6, but on the first it was at noon.
The rest of the parish churches had celebration the first Sunday
in the month at noon, while at St. Mary le Savoy they had two
celebrations on that Sunday, one at 7, the other at noon. At St.
James' Westminster they had celebration only on the second Sunday
in the month.
The pious author of this single sheet adds below his tables :
If this Paper have its desired Effect, I trust Almighty God will open
the hearts of his faithful Labourers, to set up Daily Prayer and Weekly
Communion in many of their own Churches, where at present it is not.1
To follow into the next century the account of the weekly
Eucharist.
In 1704 there was Holy Communion every Sunday at St.
Andrew's Holborn, All Hallows Barking, St. James' Chapel, St.
Lawrence Jewry, St. Martin's in the Fields, St. Peter's Cornhill, St.
Swithun's London Stone,2 fewer it may be feared than in 1692.
In 1728 there was a celebration of the Eucharist every Sunday
at these churches and these hours, as follows : St. Andrew's Hol
born at 9 ; St. Anne's Aldersgate at 6 ; All Hallows Barking, hour
not given ; St. Dunstan's in the West at 9 ; St. George's Chapel, in
Ormond Street at 10 ; St. Giles' Cripplegate at 9, and some Sundays
at 6 ; St. James' Chapel at 8 ; St. Lawrence Jewry at 6, except on
the first Sunday in the month when it was at 10; St. Martin's in
the Fields at 6, except on the second Sunday in the month ; St.
Peter's Cornhill at 9 ; St. Swithun's London Stone at 9.3
Paterson's Pietas Londinensis , published in I7!4j names the
following churches as having a weekly celebration :
All Hallows Barking at noon ; St. Andrew's Holborn, after fore
noon sermon, and on Easter Day at 7 and 12; St. Clement Danes
at 12 ; Chapel, Story's Gate, St. James' Park, at 12 ; St. Dunstan's
West at 1 2 ; St. George's Queen Square at 1 2 ; Chapel Royal St.
James' at 8 and 12 if the Queen be present; St. Lawrence Jewry,
1 The Shelf Mark in the British Museum is 491. k. 4 (n). It begins with : In the
parable of the Marriage Feast. It was sold by Samuel Keble at the Turk's Head in
Fleet Street.
2 Rules for our more Devout Behaviour In the time of Divine Service, tenth ed.
London, Keble, 1704.
3 ibid, fourteenth edition, London, Hazard, 1728, last leaves.
3 2 WEEKL Y CELEBRA TION.
the first Sunday of the month at 1 2 and the others at 6 ; St.
Martin's in the Fields at 12, but on the first Sunday in the month
at 6 or 7 and again at 1 2 ; St. Peter's Cornhill, every Sunday at 1 1
after Sermon; St. Stephen's Coleman Street at 12.
This agrees in many particulars with lists given in the tables
of the edition of Stow published in I72O.1 The lists in Stow pub
lished in 1755 agree so closely with those of 1720 that a suspi
cion is raised that the editor of 1755 has merely copied those
of 1720.
The Pious Country Parishioner is told that :
In many great towns in England, we have Monthly Communions ;
nay, in many Churches, every Lord's Day.2
And another writer of the same date points out :
But now, when every Church, and every Festival, when every Priest
and almost every Lord's Day exhibits this delicious Food and offers it to
as many 3 . . .
It may be taken for granted that in all the other parish churches
spoken of by Paterson the Eucharist was celebrated once a month,
often the first Sunday in the month. But, though the Eucharist
was not weekly, yet in some it was celebrated oftener than once a
month, of which the following are instances from Paterson.
At St. Anne's Soho there was communion every first and third
Sunday of the month, and Good Friday at 1 2, but on Christmas
Day, Easter Day, and Whitsunday at 7 and 12. At St. Dunstan's
Stepney, the first and second Sunday of the month at 1 2 ; St. Dun
stan's in the West, every " holy day at twelve and every day in the
Octaves 4 of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday at 8 after morning
prayers ". At St. Giles' in the Fields, every second Sunday in the
month after morning prayers at 7. At St. James' Piccadilly, "every
second Sunday in the month, and every Sunday from Palm-Sunday
to Trinity Sunday, and on New Year's Day at twelve o'clock only;
and on Christmas Day, Palm Sunday, Easter Day, and Whitsunday,
1 John Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. Strype,
London, 1720, vol. ii. p. 19 of Book V.
2 Pious Country Parishioner, London, Pemberton, sixth ed. 1732, p. 147. This
note appears in all editions that I have seen down to that of 1836.
3 James King, Sacramental Devotions, London, J. Hazard, 1722, p. 26.
4 Octave is an expression used by A. Sparrow (Rationale, London, Garthwait,
1661, p. 179) in his paragraph on Trinity Sunday, which is "lookt upon as an Octave
of Pentecost ". See also the Appendix to this chapter, p. 47.
WEEKL Y CELEBRA TION. 33
twice, viz. at seven and twelve ". At St. Mary le Bow, every holy
day immediately after morning prayers. At St. Mary Magdalen
Bermondsey, "twice on all Holy Days that fall on the first
Sunday of the Month, and on Christmas Day, Easter Day, Whit
sunday, etc., at seven and twelve ". At St. Mary le Strand, every
first Sunday in the month, at seven and twelve. At St. Matthew
Friday Street, the first Sunday in the month, twice, at six after
morning prayers and sermon, and again at 1 2. At St. Olave Hart
Street, it is said "The Holy Sacrament is administered on every
Sunday, after the first Thursday of the Month, and on all solemn
Occasions ". At St. Paul's Covent Garden, the first Sunday at 12,
the third at 7. At St. Sepulchre's, besides every first Sunday of the
month, every Sunday from Easter to Trinity Sunday after fore
noon sermon.
To leave the London churches and treat of what is more parti
cular.
Mrs. Astell's community was to have a celebration of the holy
Eucharist every Lord's day and holy day.1
There was weekly communion at Christ Church Oxford towards
the end of the seventeenth and in the first third of the eighteenth cen
tury ; for Hearne tells us that Francis Fox when at Edmund Hall
" went every Sunday to Christ Church Prayers in the Morning, to re
ceive the Sacrament,"2 and speaking of the death of Dr. Henry
Aldrich, the Dean of Christ Church, on Dec. 14, 1710, the same
diarist says ;
He constantly receiv'd the Sacrament every Sunday, rose to five a Clock
Prayers in the Morning Summer and Winter.3
Also the Oxford Methodists, as they were called, bound them
selves by a rule to receive Communion weekly because the place
afforded opportunities of this. Also they were to observe strictly
the fasts of the Church.4
Swift in his exile in Ireland restored weekly communion in his
collegiate church. At least so Johnson says in his Life of Swift?
1 Mary Astell, A serious proposal to the Ladies, London, 1696, p. 60. First edition
was in 1694 ; the fourth in 1701.
2 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. C. E. Doble, Oxford Historical
Society, 1885, vol. i. p. 34.
3 ibid. 1889, vol. iii. p. 89.
4 The Oxford Methodists : being some account of a Society of Young Gentlemen in
that City, so denominated, London, Roberts, 1733, p. 9.
5 Samuel Johnson, Works, Edinburgh, 1806, vol. xiii. p. 38.
3
34 WEEKL Y CELEBRA TION.
Though a weekly communion, or even a monthly, might not be
possible from the apathy of the laity, yet the least expected was that
there should be means that every parishioner should be able to com
municate at least three times a year. Also that the parish priest
should be ready to celebrate the Eucharist whenever the necessary
number to make a synaxis could be got together. We see this urged
in the Visitation articles of a Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. William Fleet-
wood, esteemed, perhaps unjustly, a Whig and Low Churchman ;
yet in 1710 he put these questions at a Visitation touching the
curate of the place :
10. Doth he Administer the Sacrament of the Lord's- Supper so often,
that all his Parishioners may Receive at least three times in the Year ?
11. Is he always ready to Administer it when there is a sufficient
Number of his Parishioners duly prepared and desirous to Communicate
with him ? *
On the other hand we may note the hindrances which other
Whig prelates tried to throw in the way of the keeping of the
Church's rule about weekly communion in Collegiate Churches.
John Byrom, the sturdy churchman of Manchester, is perhaps best
known to this age as the author of the Christmas hymn, Christians
awake^ salute the happy morn. He was a Manchester man, and Dr.
Peploe, Bishop of Chester, visited the " Old Church," then only
collegiate, with a view to crushing certain practices which were but
in accordance with the law. The visitation was finished on Monday,
April 1 8, 1743, and a correspondent of John Byrom thus ironically
describes the utterances of the Bishop :
The weekly communion is likewise a great and grievous innovation,
and an heavy charge upon the parishioners. No matter for primitive
practice or ancient canons. They are all Popish. The Church of England
enjoins her members to receive but three times in the year.
* * *
I intended to give you more and merrier, but my vein of mirth, you
see, is exhausted, and that I am almost at the end of my tether.2
The rubric at the end of the Communion Service in the Book of
1 Articles of Enquiry exhibited by the Right Reverend Father in God, William
[Fleetwood] . . . at his primary Visitation, no printer's name or place, 1710, p. 22.
2 Richard Parkinson, The Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom,
Chetham Society, 1857, Vol. II. part ii. p. 357. It is unfortunate that we have no other
account of this Visitation. By the kindness of the Dean of Chester, the Episcopal Register
at Chester has been examined, but the record of the Visitation at Manchester deals
chiefly with the question of leases.
MONTHL Y COMMUNION. 3 5
Common Prayer contains a plain direction that in Cathedral and
Collegiate Churches and Colleges, where there are many Priests and
Deacons, they shall all receive the Communion with the Priest every
Sunday at the least. The law of the Church was nothing to Dr.
Peploe.
A desire for a weekly celebration of the Eucharist is to be found
expressed in the middle of the eighteenth century.
There can be no solid Reason given why weekly Communions should
not be everywhere established ; and why the People should not receive the
Sacrament as regularly as they come to the Prayers and Sermon.1
A page or two before the author pleads for communion on week
days, and wishes that a celebration every Sunday had been made a
matter of necessity, not of liberty, and that whenever a review of
the Liturgy shall be considered expedient such a rule shall be con
sidered.
MONTHLY COMMUNION.
It was the usual practice with pious people of this time to re
ceive communion only once a month. Swift tells us this of Queen
Anne :
The queen has the gout, and did not come to chapel, nor stir out from
her chamber, but received the sacrament there : as she always does the
first Sunday in the month.2
The Rector of St. James' Piccadilly, taking leave of his parish
on his promotion to the See of Norwich, speaks of " those Multi
tudes, that without Superstition or Tumult, every month crowd up
to the Altar ".8
Still, on the other hand, a few years after, during Dr. Clarke's
incumbency, there is something noted not quite so much to the
credit of St. James' Church :
there is one great Fault in the Churches here, which we no where meet with
abroad, and that is, that a Stranger cannot have a convenient Seat without
paying for it ; and particularly at this St. James's, where it costs one almost
1 An Essay on the Lord's Supper, London, J. Mechell, 1747, p. 27.
'J J. Swift, Journal to Stella, Sept. 2, 1711, in Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh,
1814, vol. ii. p. 338.
3 A Sermon preached at the Parish-Church of St. James's Westminster on Sunday
the $oth of January, 1708 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Charles [Trimnell]
Lord Bishop of Norwich. At his taking his Leave of the said Parish, London, Chap
man, 1709, p. 25.
3*
36 MONTHL Y COMMUNION.
as dear as to see a Play. It is a pity that the Worship of God should be put
to Sale, and that so venerable a Devotion as that of this Church, should be
accompany'd with Expence ; however, on Week-Days they have the
Prayers in most Churches at certain Hours in the Morning, as the Roman
Catholicks have their Masses, where a Stranger may join in them for
nothing.1
In the Religious Society of St. Giles' Cripplegate, whose mem
bers evidently aimed at a high standard of life, the communion
of the Society was only to be once a month at six o'clock in the
morning at St. Lawrence Jewry.2
But the difficulty in establishing more frequent communion was
with the ordinary lay folk : there was the old mediaeval tradition
of communion only once a year, at Easter ; and nearer to the time,
the Puritan tradition of none at all. Dr. Johnson's piety is un
doubted ; yet we find no evidence of his communicating oftener
than once a year, at Easter.3 So, too, the custom of Kettlewell,
thought a considerable High Churchman, was as follows. He took
possession of his parish in 1682 and this was his practice until he
was deprived :
He always Administered the Holy Communion on Christmas- Day,
Good- Friday, Easter- Day, the Sunday after, and Whit- Sunday ; and
several Times of the year besides. But because the greatest part of his
Parishioners had been very negligent in the Performance of that Duty, he
took a great deal of Pains to make them sensible of their Fault, both from
the Pulpit, and in Conversation ; and had Success in convincing several.4
This seems to us nowadays seldom enough. It is not unlike
the practice at Clay worth.5
If we glance over the books of devotion published in France in
the eighteenth century, we may very likely come to the conclusion
that, with the French, communion once a month was the rule for
the average person of piety. In England the increase of the number
of communions during the nineteenth century is almost the only
unmixed good that we can point to as arising in that time.
1 A Journey through England in familiar letters, London, Roberts and Caldecott,
1714, vol. i. p. 202.
2 See Appendix to Chapter ix. below, p. 312.
3 In 1779, on his birthday he notes at Epsom : " My purpose is to communicate at
least thrice a year " ; but there is no evidence that he carried this purpose out. (Prayers
and Meditations composed by Samuel Johnson, ed. George Strahan, London, Cadell,
1785, p. 175.)
4 Memoirs of the Life of Mr. John Kettlewell compiled from the collections of Dr.
George Hickes and Robert Nelson, Esq. London, 1718, p. 65.
6 See below, p. 38.
NUMBER OF COMMUNICANTS. 37
NUMBER OF COMMUNICANTS.
It must be acknowledged that throughout our period the laity
received communion with a melancholy infrequency. Yet though
celebrations were so rare, the number of communicants in propor
tion to the population of parishes will bear comparison with that
in our day. No doubt to-day the total number of communions is
much greater, for the same person, who in the eighteenth century
only approached the Holy Table once a month, now receives com
munion once or twice a week, or even oftener.
Dr. Symon Patrick, when at St. Paul's Covent Garden, says
that he had often great Communions, and sometimes large offerings.1
This was about 1680. Crowds would approach the Holy Table
on certain occasions. Evelyn tells us on Oct. 7, 1688, only a
month before the Revolution, when people's minds were full of the
danger of the bringing back of popery :
Dr. Tenison preach'd at St. Martina's. . . . After which neere 1000
devout persons partook of the communion.
That a large number of people did approach the Altar in Queen
Anne's time we learn from the expressions used by Nelson : " Where
Communions are large we may want some Exercises for the Em
ploying our devout Affections".2
In 1712 Lord Willoughby de Broke says :
never were our Churches so well filled ; never our Communions so fre
quented ; never more holy Zeal, more humble Devotion ; never larger
Charities, than what are constantly offered up at the Holy Table in every
Church of this great City.3
At Manchester in 1 738 Whitefield visited the chaplain of the " Old
Church " and even took duty in his chapel of ease.
Here he spent Sunday, December 3 [Advent Sunday] and preached
twice in Clayton's church, [i.e. chapel of ease] to thronged and attentive
congregations, and assisted six more clergymen in administering the sacra
ment to three hundred communicants.4
Later in 1 748 he writes :
1 The autobiography of Symon Patrick, Oxford, Parker, 1839, p. 88.
2 Robert Nelson, The great duty of frequenting the Christian Sacrifice, London,
Churchill, 1706, p. 136.
3 George, Lord Willoughby de Broke, Blessedness of doing good, London, Joseph
Downing, 1712, p. 13.
4 L. Tyerman, The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, Hodder and Stoughton,
1876, vol. i. 148.
3^ NUMBER OF COMMUNICANTS.
I have preached twice in St. Bartholomew's Church, and helped to
administer the sacrament once. I believe, on Sunday last, we had a thou
sand communicants.1
Clayton, be it noticed, was the chaplain who was attacked by
the Whigs at Manchester for high church practices. In 1745 as
the young Chevalier passed, he knelt in the streets and prayed for
his success. And it should be observed that the churches where
these large numbers of communicants were found, were not the
churches or chapels served by Whitefield himself, but by their
regular incumbents.
Of Romaine, the rector of St. Andrew's, Baynard Castle, in the
city of London, it is said :
The popular enthusiasm in favour of the new rector was such, that the
papers of April 1767 assert, that he administered the sacrament to more
than 500 persons on the Good Friday of that year, and to 300 on the fol
lowing Sunday.2
But the figures which have just been given are in round numbers,
taken from parishes in London or other large towns where even if
we had exact figures given it would not be an easy matter to infer
the proportion of communicants to the rest of the population.
Yet if it be allowed us to judge from such figures of the period as
are at hand, it would seem that the proportion of communicants to
the population at large is not much higher nowadays than it was
in the eighteenth century. In the first set of figures given below,
that set out in 1676 by the Rector of Clayworth, the proportion
would seem to be higher than is usual in the early part of the
twentieth century.
In reply to queries from the Archbishop of York as to the
number of persons of age to receive the Communion, the Rector of
Clayworth in 1676 replies :
That the number of Persons Young and Old within the Parish of Cla-
worth being under 400, there are of them of age to communicate (according
to the Canon) 236, and these did actually communicate at our Easter Com
munion 200 ; that is to say on Palm Sunday, Good-friday and Easter-day.3
The numbers were divided as follows : Palm Sunday 50, Good
Friday 37, Easter Day 113: in all, 200 as stated.4
1 L. Tyerman, The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, Hodder and Stoughton,
1876, vol. ii. p. 186.
2J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, 1803, vol. ii. p. 364.
3 Harry Gill and Everard L. Guilford, The Rector's Book Clayworth Notts, Nott
ingham, Saxton, 1910, p. 18.
4 ibid. p. 14.
NUMBER OF COMMUNICANTS. 39
Later on the Rector attempted three Celebrations at each of the
great festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide; but these
extra celebrations appear to have been given up ; the communicants
sank to 7, 4, and 3 only.1
A few years later we have figures from the Diocese of London.
Hillingdon, Middlesex.
1682 This year on Easter Day was [? and] Low Sunday 300 persons
received the communion, alarmed to their duty by an order from Henry
[Compton], Lord Bishop of London.2
Mr. Messiter has published a very valuable account of the
Church life in the small parish of Epworth in the eighteenth cent
ury. From the parish documents he has compiled a table of the
number of communicants from 1742 to 1762. The lowest average
is 34, the highest 70. Commenting upon this and the amount of
money collected during the offertory, Mr. Messiter says :
Thus, for example, it will be seen that in 1 746 there was an average
attendance of seventy at each Communion, and the total amount collected
in the year was ^4. 195. 6d. ; that in 1755 the average attendance was
only thirty five, and the total amount collected £$. 45. 3d.3
He adds that the largest attendance at any one Communion
was on Christmas Day :
"Dec. 25, 1744: 135 Communicants."
On Easter Day, March 22, 1761, there were eighty-six com
municants.4
I have not been able to make out any certain data for the num
bers of the inhabitants of Epworth in the middle of the eighteenth
century. In 1801, the first English census, the population was
1434. In 1901, it was 1856, having thus risen over 400 in the
century. If it be allowed to make a guess at 1200 for the popula
tion in the mid-eighteenth century, and deducting a third for those
not yet old enough to be communicants, we have some 800 possible
communicants, and of these eighty-six communicated at Easter
1761 : 135 at Christmas 1744.
To pass on to the very verge of the nineteenth century.
1 Harry Gill and Everard L. Guilford, The Rector's Book Clayworth Notts, Nott-
ingham, Saxton, 1910, pp. 66, 74, 77, 91, 98, etc.
2J. S. Burn, The History of Parish Registers in England, sec. ed. London, J. R.
Smith, 1862, p. 186.
3 A. F. Messiter, Notes on Epworth Parish Life in the eighteenth century, Elliot
Stock, 1912, p. 50.
* Op. cit. p. 53.
40 NUMBER OF COMMUNICANTS.
In the year 1 800 a sort of census is taken in the diocese of
Lincoln and the clergy wring their hands over the results :
In seventy-nine of those parishes returns have been made of the pro
portion which the number of attendants on public worship and of the Lord's
Supper bears to their population. The aggregate result of these returns
stands thus :
f The number of inhabitants is estimated at 15042
I Adults above fourteen years of age 1 1282
In 79 Parishes -j Average number in the ordinary congregations 4933
Average number of communicants at each
sacrament 1808
So that the ordinary number of attendants on divine service does not
amount to one-third part of the number of inhabitants, and the communicants
are not one-sixth part of the adults.1
The records of the diocese of St. Asaph for the year 1 806 have
been examined by Mr. Jebb. He tells us that he has taken the
returns "at haphazard," and this is the varying result :
In the parish of Llanfair Caereinion, with a population of 2,537, there
were 750 communicants at Easter. Of Dissenters there were in the parish
only 25 Methodists, and " 9 to 12 " persons who attended the Presbyterian
meeting-house.
In the parish of Llanfyllin, with a population of from 400 to 500, there
were from 200 to 300 communicants at Easter.
In the parish of Castle Caereinion, with a population of 635, there
was " only one family of Calvinistic Methodists who do not receive the
Holy Communion ".
In the parish of Darwen, with 800 souls, there were no Dissenters of
any denomination, and no meeting-house, and the monthly Communion
was attended by from 72 to 84 persons.
In the parish of Machynlleth, with a population of 2,154, there were
from 50 to 60 Dissenters and 300 communicants.2
To compare the number of Easter communicants at the begin
ning of the nineteenth century with those in recent years. In 1911-
1 2 in the diocese of Lincoln there was roughly speaking a population
of 560,000, the communicants at Easter 46,000. Deducting a third
from the population as not yet come to years of discretion, we get
380,000 as of age to receive communion and thus only an eighth part
approached the Holy Table at Easter. Things are no better if we
take the whole population of England. It was over 36 millions, from
1 Report from the Clergy of a district in the diocese of Lincoln, etc. London,
Rivington, 1800, p. 6.
2 H. H. Jebb, A great bishop of one hundred years ago, London, Arnold, 1909, p.
177.
CEREMONIES IN WORSHIP. 41
which a third deducted leaves 24 millions ; yet only two and a half
millions communicated at Easter, something like a tenth of what was
possible.1
Thus there is no room for self-congratulation in the twentieth
century over past times. We must say with Elijah : " I am not better
than my fathers ".
NON-COMMUNICATING ATTENDANCE.
A writer who claims to be " late of the University of Oxford "
in a preface to a revised book of Common Prayer, after directing
the Eucharist to be celebrated at evening service, though " it is now
generally celebrated in the morning," passes on to recommend non-
communicating attendance :
It appears, that we have not only lost sight of the time of the day in which
this ordinance should be celebrated, but we have lost sight of the ancient
practice, of celebrating it in the presence of the whole congregation, after
the manner of the Catholics. For, instead of this, those that will not
receive it, are now ordered to depart, that the doors may be closed : thus
they appear to be ashamed of the Lord, at the very time they are about to
partake of his supper ! 2
Evidently this member of the University of Oxford had never
heard of the expulsion of the catechumens. And fourteen years
afterwards, another writer, though much better informed, suggests
a Canon ordering non-Communicants not to leave their seats till the
whole service be concluded. He objects to the premature departure
of baptized non-communicants directly after the sermon.3
CEREMONIES IN WORSHIP.
The ceremonies of Anglican worship in this period were
doubtless simple enough ; but, given a will to see evil in them, they
could no doubt be misrepresented and exaggerated, and a decent
pomp be held up to scorn as theatrical.
Thus one Easter Day, April 15, 1666, Mr. Pepys goes to the
King's Chapel at Whitehall :
I staid till the King went down to receive the Sacrament, and stood in
his closett with a great many others, and there saw him receive it, which I
1 Official Year-Book of the Church of England, 1913, London, S.P.C.K. p. xxviii.
" A new arrangement of the Liturgy, London, Baynes, 1820, p. iv. by a Gentleman
late of the University of Oxford.
3 Montagu Robert Melville, Esq., Reform not subversion I A Proposed Book of
Common Prayer, London, Roake and Varty, 1834, P- 94. Canon xxviii.
42 CEREMONIES IN WORSHIP.
did never see the manner of before. But I do see very little difference
between the degree of the ceremonies used by our people in the adminis
tration thereof, and that in the Roman Church, saving that methought, our
Chappell was not so fine, nor the manner of doing it so glorious, as it was in
the Queene's chappell.
He had before, on July 29, 1660, expressed his dislike of what
he saw at Whitehall.
To White Hall Chappell, where I heard a cold sermon of the Bishop of
Salisbury's, Duppa's, and the ceremonies did not please me, they do so
overdo them.
Again Mr. Pepys shows his dislike of the Anglican ceremonies,
for on April 22, 1666 he goes to the Queen's Chapel and
there saw a little mayde baptized ; many parts and words whereof are
the same with that of our Liturgy, and little that is more ceremonious
than ours.
On October 1 8, 1666 he is godfather at a Roman Catholic private
baptism.
But it was pretty, that, being a Protestant, a man stood by and was my
Proxy to answer for me. A priest christened it and the boy's name is
Samuel. The ceremonies many, and some foolish.
Not altogether unlike in sentiment but less polite in speech is
the following. Speaking of clergymen, Hickeringill advises :
consequently handle him, as if he really were a Popish Priest; his
Cope, his Hood his Surplice, his Cringing Worship, his Altar with Candles
on it (most Nonsensically unlighted too) his Bag-Pipes or Organs, and in
some places Viols and Violins, singing Men and singing Boys &c. are all
so very like Popery, (and all but the Vestments illegal) that I protest when
I came in 1660, first from beyond Sea to Pauls, and White- If all, I could
scarce think my self to be in England, but in Spain or Portugal again, I
saw so little Difference, but that their Service was in Latine and ours in
English.1
This writer from his language seems to be a sour puritan ; for
he dislikes Hood, Surplice, Organs or other musical instruments, and
singing men and boys : and accordingly he proves to have been
chaplain in a regicide's regiment, later a baptist, a quaker, and a
deist ; after these, a soldier in foreign service, then fined for slander
against Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, and finally convicted of
forgery in 1707. But his evidence, as well as that of Pepys, shows
1 Edm. Hickeringill, The Ceremony Monger, London, 1689, p. 18.
CEREMONIES IN WORSHIP. 43
how decency in divine worship, for it may well have been nothing
more, presents itself to those who are unused to it.
Following in the steps of Hickeringill, White Kennett, who is
less excusable, for he must have known better, attempts to throw
not merely derision on the devotion of the people, but suspicion
upon their Churchmanship. He is writing in the reign of King
George the First, about 1717, to a correspondent in America, and
speaks thus of the practices in the English churches of his time.
Some wou'd not go to their Seats in the Church till they had kneePd
and pray'd at the Rails of the Communion Table ; they wou'd not be con
tent to receive the Sacrament there kneeling, but with Prostration and
Striking of the Breast, and Kissing of the Ground, as if there were an Host
to be ador'd ; they began to think the Common Prayer without a Sermon
(at least Afternoon) to be the best way of serving God ; and Churches
without Organs had the thinner Congregations ; bidding of Prayer was
thought better than praying to God, and even Pictures about the Altar
began to be the Books of the Vulgar ; the Meeting-Houses of Protestant
Dissenters were thought to be more denied Places than Popish Chapels :
In short, the Herd of People were running towards Rome without any
Foresight, or Power of looking backward.1
The same hatred of decent ceremonies is to be found in the
second quarter of the eighteenth century. It is some evidence,
moreover, that these ceremonies were kept up in the Church.
With others, Name of Church doth signify
A mere misplaced Zeal and Bigotry
For Rites and Ceremonies, and these too
The very worst and meanest of the Crew ;
Such as perhaps the" Church might better spare,
And more her Blemish than her Beauty are.
Live as you list, this Man doth not regard ;
Infringe her Doctrines too, he is not stirr'd ;
But touch a Surplice, or an Eastern Nod,
You wound his Darling, and blaspheme his God.
Ask him but whence unlighted Candles came ?
And streight the Man himself is on a Flame :
Speak but against the Cross, he'l read your doom,
That you deserve to hang in Gismas Room :
He'd rather have two Easters in a year,
Than to disturb the sacred Calendar.
What most is scrupled, that he values most ;
And rather would have all Dissenters lost
1 The Life of the Right Reverend Dr. White Kennett, London, S. Billingsley, 1730,
p. 126.
44 CEREMONIES IN WORSHIP.
Than old Translation should be refitted,
Or Tobit and his Dog should be omitted.
He joys when Service in the ChancePs read,
Though half the People hear not what is sed.
Adores an Organ, though he needs must know,
That when the Heav'nly Boreas doth blow,
The sense too oft is murder'd by the Sound,
And many a Psalm feloniously is drown'd.1
And a writer who can hardly be other than Hoadly himself, in
1735 attacks some acts of devotion, doubtless harmless enough in
themselves.
I have frequently, at the Celebration of this holy Supper, seen Per
sons bow down, in the humblest Posture of Adoration (according to the
Directions above cited) as the Minister, officiating, drew near to them
with the Bread, or Wine. And, I doubt not, but others, in other Places
may have seen the same.2
Hoadly is complaining of the directions that are given in cer
tain books of devotion, which will be spoken of a little later on, to
the communicant to prostrate himself before the Altar.3
The particular act of devotion attacked by White Kennett of
going up to the Communion rail at first entering into church and
then making some short act of worship may be, possibly, a follow
ing of the Greeks who on first going into church pass to the icono-
stasis and salute the holy icons. The kissing of the ground is
also practised by the Orthodox. There are other instances in this
age of an imitation of the Orthodox Easterns, which is certainly not
evidence of a following of Rome.4
1 Ad Populum Phalerts : or the Twinn Shams, 1738, p. 6 (no printer or place),
Bodleian Library, Gough, Lond. 150.
2 [Benjamin Hoadly,] An Apologetical Defence, or a Demonstration of the Useful
ness and Expediency of a late Book, entitled, A Plain Account of the Nature, and End,
of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, London, T. Cooper, 1735, p. 22. The opinion
that this tract was written by Hoadly himself is strengthened by a remark on p. 4.
" Could any Thing be more worthy of, or more suitable to the Character of the reputed
Author of the Plain Account than to attack this formidable Host ? "
3 See below, p. 60. Hoadly (Apologetical Defence, p. 13 to p. 33) gives a convenient
series of extracts from the books of devotion which he attacks.
4 See below, p. 182.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II.
It may be well to add a few words upon expressions in our period that
may not commonly have been looked for. For example the word viaticum
is used by Evelyn in connexion with the death of Mrs. Godolphin.1 It
may also be found elsewhere. Dr. Gunning administers " the sacred
viaticum " to Dr. Barwick, the Dean of St. Paul's.2 The word is also much
used by Anthony Sparrow in his Rationale in the chapter on the Com
munion of the Sick.
Of Dr. Turner, Dean of Canterbury, it is said that
" The day before he surrendered his blessed soul into the hands of God,
he received the Holy Sacrament very devoutly, conquering his aversion
against anything offered to him to swallow ... yet he forced himself to
receive the Viaticum" 3
Dr. Ken, the deprived Bishop of Bath and Wells, in his Sermon at the
death of the Lady Mainard, says :
" On Whitsunday she received her viaticum^ the most holy body and
blood of her Saviour, and had received it again, had not death surprised
us, yet in the strength of that immortal food she was enabled to go out her
journey."4
So Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York, tells us that the Ancient
Christians called the Communion of the Sick, the Viaticum.5 Dr. John
son uses the word of his last communion : " I have taken my viaticum :
I hope I shall arrive safe at the end of my journey ".6
So Dr. Home, Bishop of Norwich, speaking of the operations of the
Holy Ghost, says :
"And it is marvellous to behold, as the excellent bishop Andrews
1 See above, p. 24.
2 The life of Dr. John Barwick, ed. by G. F. Barwick, Stewart Series, 1903, p. 179.
3 Peter du Moulin, A Sermon . . . at the funeral of the Very Reverend Thomas
Turner, London, Brome, 1672, p. 27.
4 The Prose Works of . . . Thomas Ken, ed. J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838,
p. 142. A sermon preached at the funeral of ... Lady Margaret Mainard, June 30,
1682.
5 Sir William Dawes, An exact account of King George's Religion, London, J.
Churchill, 1714, p. 6.
6 Narrative by John Hoole, in G. Birkbeck Hill, Johnsonian Miscellanies, Oxford,
1897, vol. ii. p. 155.
45
46 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IL
observes, how, from the laver of regeneration, to the administration of the
Viaticum^ this good Spirit helpeth us." l
But a stranger expression is to be found in an odd story of what may
be the last illness of King George the Fourth. It is said that the Arch
bishop of Canterbury was about to administer the Host to the King :
" One day whilst the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury waited upon His Majesty
in order to administer to him the Holy Sacrament, one of the attendants
some how or other so offended His Majesty, that he sternly forbid him the
Royal Presence, and then turned round to the Arch- Bishop to receive the
Host ; the Arch-Bishop, be it ever spoken to his praise, declined ad
ministering the same until such time as His Majesty was more calm and free
from anger. His Majesty bowed with submission and reverence ; sent for
the servant ; shook him by the hand, sincerely forgave him ; and after a
few moments spent in solemn devotion, received the ' living bread ' from
the hands of the ' High Priest V 2
In 1824 an unlooked-for expression does meet us. It is said of the
Skinners' Company that they attend Divine Service at St. Antholin's Wat-
ling Street on Corpus Christi Day.
Words sometimes thought to be limited to the middle ages or to the age
after the Tractarian movement began, are to be found in use. Parson
Supple says : " your ladyship observed a young woman at church yesterday at
even-song ".3
Another mediaeval word, the survival of which we should not have
expected, is Pater nosier, for the Lord's prayer.
Describing the " stately Altar-piece built Anno 1 706 and 7 " at St.
Dunstan's in the East, the writer says : " here are also the Decalogue, and
the Creed, and Pater Noster farther outward ".4
It may seem to others as well as to myself a pity that these three
formularies, the foundations of morals, faith, and devotion should no longer
be shown in our churches, as they were in the middle ages. They may,
however, return, when the fury of the present fashion is exhausted.
And in common conversation the word is used for the Lord's Prayer :
Dry den makes a carrier say he knows the contents of a letter " as well as I
do my Pater Noster ".5
Arbuthnot makes Peg, the sister of John Bull, take "a fancy not to say
1 The works of the Right Reverend George Home, ed. by William Jones, London,
Rivington, 1818, vol. ii. p. 352. Discourse xviii, the Unspeakable Gift.
2 The Last Moments of our late beloved Sovereign Geo. IV. London, Elliot [1830],
p. 8.
a Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, Book IV. ch. x. (Works, ed. by A.
Murphy and J. P. Browne, London, Bickers, vol. vi. p. 193).
4 A New View of London, London, Nicholson and Knaplock, 1708, vol. ii. supple
ment, p. 818.
5 John Dryden, Sir Martin Mar-all, Act. ii. Sc. i, Works, London, Tonson, 1762,
vol. ii. p. 109.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. 47
her Pater noster".1 Peg is Scotland; there the Presbyterians refused not
only a Liturgy, but the saying of a fixed form, even if it had all the
authority of the Lord's Prayer.
Smollett makes use of the term when describing the devotions of an
English sailor half frightened out of his wits by supposed apparitions :
" So saying, he had recourse to his Pater noster." 2
The word octave is sometimes thought to have come in with 1840,
but we find it in Paterson's Pietas Londinensis of i7i4,3 and in the times
when marriages are prohibited it is also used,4 even to the second decade
of the nineteenth century.4
1 John Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, Part III. ch. ii. in Swift's Works, ed.
Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. vi. p. 301.
2 Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, ch. vii. Hutchinson,
1905, p. 71. First published in 1762. (Epitome.)
3 p. 80. 4 See below, p. 260.
CHAPTER III.
THE EUCHARIST (cant.)
EARLY CELEBRATIONS.
A FAULT has been found with the period under discussion : it is
stated that there were no early celebrations of the Eucharist, or
only one in one day in the same church or chapel, until after 1833.
But this statement will not bear investigation. It can be refuted at
once by the instances out of Paterson. But to proceed in order of
time. Two years after the Restoration, on Christmas Day 1662,
Mr. Pepys describes what must be two celebrations of the Eucharist
in one chapel, the Chapel Royal. One is early, the other late.
Had a pleasant walk to White Hall, where I intended to have re
ceived the Communion with the family, [i.e. the household] but I came a
little too late. So I walked up into the house. ... By and by down to the
chappell again, where Bishopp Morley preached. . . . The sermon done,
a good anthem followed, with vialls, and then the King came down to
receive the Sacrament. But I staid not.
The same evidence is given by Evelyn, though we find that he
made a better use of the opportunities of communion. On Easter
Day, March 30, 1684, he tells us that he "had receiv'd the Sacra
ment at White-hall early with the Lords and Household," that is,
" the family " as Mr. Pepys calls it, but after service at St. Martin's,
he returned again to Whitehall and saw the King communicate.
There are also the time tables of the London churches beginning
in 1692, which record communion at 6 and 7 in the morning. In
1692 there are early communions at St. James' Chapel at 8, St.
Lawrence Jewry at 6, and St. Martin's in the Fields at 6.
To note more particularly the early celebrations in London
churches as distinguished from the weekly.
In 1704 there was holy communion every Sunday at St.
Andrew's Holborn at 9 ; St. James' Chapel at 8 ; St. Lawrence
Jewry at 6, except the first Sunday in the month when it may have
48
EARL Y CELEBRA TIONS. 49
been at 10, as in 1728 ; St. Martin's in the Fields at 6, except the
second Sunday, then most likely at noon, as in i6g2.1
In an edition some twenty years later there is very much the
same number of churches with an early celebration, with these
changes : there is added early communion every Sunday at St. Anne's
Aldersgate at 6 ; St. Dunstan's in the West every Sunday at 9, every
Saint's day, and the octaves of Christmas, Easter, Ascension, and
Whitsunday, at 7 ; St. George's Chapel, Great Ormond Street, at
10; St. Giles' Cripplegate at 9, possibly also at 6 ; at St. Lawrence
Jewry the communion on the first Sunday in the month is said
distinctly to be at io.2
While Dr. Horneck was Chaplain of the Savoy he had two
celebrations, one at 7, the other at midday, on the great festivals.3
This would be before 1698.
Paterson in 1714, of which the details are given above,4 notes
several parish churches where there are two celebrations in one day,
at 7 and at noon.
On Christmas Day, 1712, Swift goes to communion early:
I was at St. James's chapel by eight this morning ; and church and
sacrament were done by ten.5
On Easter Day, April 5, 1713, he reports:
I was at church at eight this morning, and dressed and shaved after I
came back.6
Arbuthnot, I think, makes an allusion to rising early for com
munion.
They never had a quiet night's rest, for getting up in the morning to
early sacraments.7
Early celebrations could not have been so rare if a writer could
allude to them and expect to be understood by all.
1 Rules for our more devout Behaviour, tenth edition, London, Keble, 1704, p.
36, etc.
2 ibid, fourteenth edition, London, Hazard, 1728, p. 35, etc.
3 Richard [Kidder], Life of the Reverend Anthony Horneck, London, Aylmer, 1698,
p. g.
4 See p. 32, above.
5 J. Swift, Journal to Stella, Dec. 25, 1712 (Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh,
1814, vol. iii. p. 136).
6 ibid. p. 199.
1 The History of John Bull, Part III. ch. viii., Jon. Swift, Works, ed. Walter Scott,
Edinb. 1814, vol. vi. p. 329.
4
50 COMMUNION WHILE FASTING.
There are some few recorded cases of an early Easter celebra
tion of the Eucharist in country churches, apparently at the end of
the eighteenth or beginning of the nineteenth century. Mr. C. F. S.
Warren says :
In Professor [A.] Sedgwick's privately printed history of his father's
parish of Dent, Yorkshire, he mentions an early Easter Celebration at the
end of the last century [i8th], and lasting far into this. There was another
in 1836 at Meifod, Montgomeryshire, where the father of Dr. Rowland
Williams was vicar.1
The Rev. Dr. Fowler, Hon. Canon of Durham, wrote to me in
1906 that at Ripon Minster there was from time immemorial at 7
o'clock in the morning a celebration of the Eucharist on Easter
Day; it was frequented by people from the various chapelries in
the parish ; sometimes they walked great distances. Of late the
hour has been altered to 8, and there is less attendance.
In 1789, King George the Third communicated, most likely
as an act of thanksgiving after one of his attacks. It was at 8 in
the morning :
Sunday March 15. — The King this morning renewed his public service
at church, by taking the Sacrament at eight o'clock. All his gentlemen
attended him.2
William Windham, the well-known politician and friend of Dr.
Johnson, writes thus on May 12, 1810, when told that he must
undergo an operation, which proved fatal to him.
1 2th. Walked out. Omitted foolishly to enquire at St. James's Church,
otherwise should have learnt that there was to be an administration
of the Sacrament at seven, which would just have suited me, as besides
the privacy, I could have gone then before I took any physic.3
He thus preferred to receive Communion while fasting.
This leads us to the consideration of the next section.
COMMUNION WHILE FASTING.
During the first half of our period, Communion while fasting
that day from all food must have been much easier than it is at
present ; usually no food seems to have been taken until dinner,
1 C. F. S. Warren, Church Times, August 24, 1888, p. 721, col. ii.
3 Madame d'Arblay, Diary and Letters, London, 1842, vol. v. p. n.
3 The Diary of the Right Hon. William Windham 1784 to 1810, edited by Mrs.
Henry Baring, Longmans, 1866, p. 505.
COMMUNION WHILE FASTING. 51
which was at noon-day, except by the luxurious and self-indul
gent.1 This refreshment was called the morning draught, it was
probably beer, or else a bowl of broth or caudle.2 The congrega
tions which assembled for the Sunday morning service would have
been, in a large proportion, fasting from all food, whether they in
tended to communicate or not.
In 1735, John Byrom notes quite by chance that he goes to
church at St. Sepulchre's without breakfast. It does not appear
that he went to communion, but it is an illustration of the custom
of the people of that age to go without food until sermon was
over.3
A German Count travelling in England in 1761 notes the
English habit :
People never dine in London before four o'clock, and take very little
before that hour ... I did not deny myself the early cup of coffee to
which I was accustomed, and this I followed by a good breakfast at ten
o'clock, consisting of tea, bread and butter, and toast.4
Sparrow speaks as if not only were men commonly fasting
up to noon, but that communion would not be thought of if men
were not fasting.
It was an ancient custom, after Burial to go to the holy Communion,
unless the office were performed after noon. For then, if men were not
fasting, it was done only with Prayers. Cone. Carth. 3, 29, Can.5
Still, whether the caution were needful or not, in the year of
the Restoration, Jeremy Taylor reiterated the warning that Com
munion should be received before any other food.
1 Mr. Pepys, though well able to fast until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, even when
up at 5 in the morning (July 4, 1662) yet took his morning draught. (Jan. 12, Feb. 3,
1659-60.) •
2" Sophia must always have her Jellies and Broths, and Caudles, and the Lord
knows what, brought to her before she would venture her Carkas out of Bed." This
is the luxurious woman ; while the good woman, " Aemilia never thought of Eating,
till the very moment before she went into her Coach". ([A. Boyer,] The English
Theophrastus, London, 1702, p. 42.) In Mrs. Centlivre's play, Love at a venture, Act i.
Wou'dbe, the " silly projecting coxcomb," rises at five, yet has no food till dinner at
one. (Works, London, 1761, vol. i. p. 270.)
3 Richard Parkinson, The Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom,
Cheetham Society, 1855, Vol. I. part ii. p. 557.
4 Count Frederick Kielmansegge, Diary of a Journey to England in the years
1761-62. Longmans, 1902, p. 28.
5 Anth. Sparrow, A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer ; Burial ; London,
Garthwait, 1661, p. 355.
4*
5 2 COMMUNION . WHILE , FASTING.
It is a Catholic custome, that they who receive the Holy Communion
should receive it fasting. This is not a duty commanded by God : but un-
lesse it be necessary to eat, he that despises this custome, gives nothing but
the testimony of an evil mind.1
And it was observed, this custom of fasting before Communion ;
on Passion Sunday, March 31, 1661, there was an ordination at
Christ Church Oxford, and one of the ordinands, a Fellow of New
College,
having been used to eat breakfasts and drink morning draughts, being
not able to hold out with fasting, was troubled so much with wind in his
stomach, that he fell in a sowne and disturb'd for a time the ceremony.2
Dr. Edward Lake, in the book written for the instruction of the
Lady Mary and the Lady Anne, afterwards Queens of Great Britain
and Ireland, writes thus :
Having thus finished your Closet- Devotions, you go forth to the Church
or Chappel fasting, so that a Portion from Gods Table may be the first
Morsel?
The same direction is to be found in the edition of 1753, the
thirtieth edition, the last of the eighteenth century.
Henry Cornwallis, a country curate, writing on preparation for
Holy Communion, advises thus :
And thus I have led you to the Holy Communion : And for the in
structing of your Behaviour there, take these few Rules.
i. It hath been the Custom of well-disposed Christians, to receive the
Sacrament fasting.4
The second rule deals with self-examination. William Nicholls
gives this advice :
It should also be received Fasting, for these Reasons, Because
1 . Our Minds are clearest ; our Devotion quickest, and so we fittest
to perform this high Service, when we are in our Virgin-Spittle.
2. It is for the honour of so high a Sacrament, that the precious Body
of Christ should first enter into the Christian's Mouth, before any other
Meat.5
1 Jeremy Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium, Book III. ch. iv. Rule xv. § i, London,
R. Roiston, 1660, vol. ii. p. 287.
2 Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society,
1891, vol. i. p. 388. Passion Sunday before the Reformation was a time for conferring
Orders.
3 Edw. Lake, Officium Eucharisticum, p. 63, Sunday morning.
4 H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in Time
of Divine Service, sec. ed. London, 1693, P- 3&.
5 William Nicholls, The Plain Maw's Instructor in the Common Prayer, London,
M. Wotton, 1713, p. 48.
COMMUNION WHILE FASTING. 53
This last paragraph is a translation of the well-known passage
from St. Augustine :
Numquid tamen propterea calumniandum est universae Ecclesiae
quod a jejunis semper accipitur? Ex hoc enim placuit Spiritui sancto, ut
in honorem tanti Sacramenti in os Christiani prius Dominicum corpus in-
traret, quam ceteri cibi : nam ideo per universum orbem mos iste servatur.1
At the end of Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice, in the Addenda im
mediately before the Conclusion of the Second Part, he speaks of
the practice of communicating before all food, and thinks it likely
to have been the custom in the Primitive Church because they cele
brated the Eucharist before daylight, and thus were in their fasting
spittle. But he does not insist upon it as part of the preparation,
but to be followed if the communicant find it exalts his devotion.
On the other hand :
there are many, who cannot communicate fasting without great Uneasi
ness and Indevotion, unless they could go directly from their Bed to the
Altar.2
As to receiving Communion while fasting the Pious Country
Parishioner has these directions .
If your Constitution be weak, or any great Inconvenience come from
your Fasting the Morning you receive, use your Pleasure ; but if you are
strong and healthy, 'tis best to abstain from Breakfast : for then, your
Thoughts will be more fix'd ; and you will gain more time to your self, and
the consecrated Bread will be, as it deserves, your first Food.3
But > in the thirteenth edition this direction is substituted :
And you need not expose yourself to the Danger of Sickness, or any
other Inconveniency, by total Abstinence ; but without being nice in such
Matters, may take such a moderate Breakfast, as will keep your Spirits
under the Length and Fervour of your Devotions.4
The New Week's Preparation was brought out to counteract the
harmful influence and popish tendencies of a Week's Preparation,
which it would seem was first published in 1679 ; though it was some
years before the mischievous tendency of the older book was dis
covered under the influence of Hoadly and his school. Yet in the
1S. Augustine, Ad inquisitioneslanuarii, lib. i. (seu epistola liv. ) Cap. vi. § 8. (Migne,
Patrologia Latina, xxxiii. 203).
2 John Johnson, The Unbloody Sacrifice, London, Knaplock, 1718, Part II. p. 270.
3 The Pious Country Parishioner, London, Pemberton, Sixth Edition, 1732, p. 182.
The same paragraph is found in the Ninth Edition of 1747.
4 ibid. 1753, p. 187. The same direction appears in the editions of 1801 and 1821.
The edition of 1836 contains nothing about total abstinence or fasting.
54 COMMUNION WHILE FASTING.
New Week's Preparation the custom of fasting communion is
plainly encouraged. It may be that the first edition was in 1737,
for the Author to the Reader there says he follows the old Week's
Preparation "printed in this present Year, 1736," which contains
" Abominable and Wanton Expressions ".
The following advice is given in the edition of 1737 as well as
in the later :
The Meditation for Saturday Morning.
Upon fasting before receiving the holy Sacrament.
* * *
[A dialogue between the soul and the body.]
3. There are these things, O my soul ! I shall propose in this case ; if
you find that my fasting makes you more devout w\& serious, and that you
are in a better frame of mind, you should certainly choose to go to the sacra -
ment fasting; or, if it be indifferent, and you are much the same whether
I fast or not, and find it makes no change at all in you, I would for decency,
and with regard to ancient practice accompany you to the sacrament fast
ing.^
The soul then pleads that it has contracted a habit of eating or
drinking some light matter every morning and cannot do without
it. It is answered :
Yet, I say, that as neither God, nor the church has appointed the con
trary, I would advise the morning abstinence on sacrament days, where the
inconveniency of doing it is none ; but I must disapprove of it, if there be
any inconveniency in abstaining.
This meditation, always in the second not the first part, is to be
found ,in editions of the New Weeks Preparation published as late
as in 1795.
When a book so widely used as the New Weeks Preparation,
and so moderate, recommends the reception of communion before
all food, it is hardly surprising to find records of individual cases of
the practice at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the
nineteenth century.
The Rev. Dr. Fowler, Hon. Canon of Durham, writes to me that
his great-grandmother went fasting to communion.
Mr. Henry Jenner tells me of an ancestress of his whose custom
at the beginning of the nineteenth century was to communicate
fasting. She used to attend the daily service at St. Martin's in the
1 The New Week's Preparation for a worthy Receiving of the Lord's Supper, Part
II. London, Millar, 1789, p. 133.
COMMUNION WHILE FASTING. 55
Fields or St. James' Piccadilly, and on Good Friday she ate nothing
but one cross-bun.
Mr. Albert Barff, when he had a parish in Berkshire about 1860,
came across an old woman who was shocked at the idea of com
municating after food.
Mr. J. E. Vaux, writing in 1894, speaks of the practice of re
ceiving communion when fasting. In a Berkshire parish an old
woman in 1863 told the parson that her mother only communicated
when fasting. At Liskeard in Cornwall it was also a " general,
though not the universal custom " in the days of a clergyman's grand
father. He gives also some other instances, all of which would
come within our period, and he considers that these instances taken
at haphazard from all parts of the country are some indication of a
survival of the practice.1
The Archbishop of Canterbury of ill fame, Dr. Herring, suggests
that " it would be necessary to order that the Lord's Supper should
be administered after the Evening as well as after the Morning
Service," thus to discourage the " superstitious reason " of fasting
before communion.2 This desire points out that the practice of re
ceiving communion before all other food was in existence and
needed in the writer's opinion to be checked.
Knowing how easy prolonged fasting was to Dr. Johnson, and
his strict principles, it might well be thought that he would have
kept the fast before communion. But it was not so. He tells us
expressly that he did not. For example :
Easter Day, April 22, 1764. . . .
I rose, took tea, and prayed for resolution and perseverance.3
then again, fifteen years later :
Easter Day, April 4, 1779.
I rose about half an hour after nine, ... by neglecting to count time,
sat too long at breakfast, so that I came to church at the First Lesson.4
Johnson communicated on both occasions.
The desire of Mr. William Windham in 1810 to communicate
fasting has been spoken of above.5
1 J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore, London, Griffith Farran, 1894, P- 57-
2 [T. Herring,] A new form of Common Prayer, London, Griffiths, 1753, p. 21.
3 Prayers and Meditations composed by Samuel Johnson, ed. Geo. Strahan,
London, Cadell, 1785, p. 47.
4 ibid. p. 171. 5 See above, p. 50.
56 MODE OF COMMUNION.
MODE OF COMMUNION.
Robert Nelson recommends the reception of the Eucharist in
the palm of the right hand supported by the left :
The ancient Christians, in the time of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, received
the Consecrated Element of Bread into the Palm of their right Hand, which
being supported by their left, was so carry'd to their Mouths, that no por
tion of that Divine Nourishment could fall to the Ground. I am not cer
tain that the Church means this, when she orders her Officers to deliver
the Sacrament to the People into their hands ; but I think the expression
sufficiently justifies it, and therefore every Communicant may take the
liberty of making use of it.1
This practice of receiving the communion in the palm of the
hand diminishes the likelihood of fragments falling to the ground,
an accident which has been guarded against since the days of Ter-
tullian.2 The houseling cloth held in front of the communicant is
intended for the same purpose. Throughout our period, except in
the cases of King William the Fourth, and of James the Second,
the latter not communicating at all, a houseling cloth was held
before the Kings and Queens of England at their communion
during the coronation service.
Further, the use of the houseling cloth has persisted in several
parishes in England, and tradition asserts that in some of these
cases the use of the cloth comes down from before the Reforma
tion. At Wimborne Abbey the use of the cloth was threatened a
few years ago from some mistaken notion of reverence. It actually
did disappear from the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, for
a few years, but it is now happily restored. It is said to be still
in use at St. Michael's and Holy Rood, Southampton ; and I have
heard of other parishes.
It is a pity that this accessory to reverence, that can be traced
back so far in the history of the Christian church, should have met
with but little encouragement in the restoration during the last
century of many other ornaments of the church that were in use
under Edward the Sixth. The Eucharist is a meal, taken in
common, and any slight reminder that such is the case should not
be put away as a profanation. We meet with such survival at a
Lincolnshire village in the mid-eighteenth century, though Mr.
1 Robert Nelson, The great duty of frequenting the Christian Sacrifice, London,
Churchill, 1706, p. 67.
2 Tertullian, de corona militis, cap. iii. (Migne, Pat. lat. ii. 80).
DEVOTIONS SUCH AS THE USE OF "AGNUS DEI". 57
Messiter is rather scandalised at the amount of wine provided at
each communion, averaging an ounce and a half for each communi
cant. This would however be little more than a mouthful for each
communicant, and it may be mentioned that the celebrant in the
Roman Communion is advised to take in the chalice about this
amount. The figures given by Mr. Messiter are these :
1744-1745 : Qts. 39. To Mr. R[omley]. 6 Bottles.
In all £4. i os. od.
1746-7 : Qts 33 wine us'd at Communion.
6 to the Minister
The above accounted for £$. i8s. od.
From Easter 48 to Do 49 : Qts 29.
To the parson 6. In all ^3 ros. od.1
There is a rubric at the end of the Communion Service in the
Book of Common Prayer beginning :
And if any of the Bread and Wine remain unconsecrated, the Curate
shall have it to his own use.
The rubric may be an explanation of what is said "To the
parson" so much. And as to the large quantity supposed to be
consumed by each communicant, it must be remembered that the
Eucharist is a feast, a feast upon a sacrifice. At the present day
this is too often forgotten, and the amount of wine consecrated is
extraordinarily small and mean, or diluted by Manichean clergy so
much that it cannot be thought wine.
In one church, St. Martin's in the Fields, in 1714, the Church
wardens' accounts reveal something of a scandal :
Paid by ditto, [churchwarden] for Sacrament wine (out of which a great
part was drank in the vestry) 90. o. o.2
The excuse was made that there were many celebrations, every
Sunday at least ; and that many people came to qualify for office
under the Test Act ; but in this case it was not the parson but the
churchwardens who had what remained to their own misuse.
DEVOTIONS SUCH AS THE USE OF AGNUS DEI.
The books of devotion of our period frequently contain as a
private prayer a form which, when sung as an anthem, was thought
of sufficiently dangerous import to be charged against Dr. King,
1 A. F. Messiter, Notes on Epworth Parish Life in the eighteenth century, Elliot
Stock, 1912, p. 53.
2 J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, yol. »v. p. 210.
58 DEVOTIONS SUCH AS THE USE OF "AGNUS DEI".
the Bishop of Lincoln, in which suit judgement was delivered in
the year 1890. It is the well-known prayer: "O Lamb of God,
that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us ".
The Whole Duty of Man, first published in 1658, had extra
ordinary popularity thenceforward, and all through the eighteenth
century. It has the following :
Ejaculations to be used at the Lord's Supper.
Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof.
* * *
O Lamb of God, which takest away the sins of the world, grant me
thy peace.
O Lamb of God, which takest away the sins of the world, have mercy
upon me.
Immediately before Receiving.
Thou hast said, that he that eateth thy flesh, and drinketh thy blood,
hath eternal life.
Note we have Domine non sum dignus as well as Agnus Dei.
In a book of which the second edition appeared in 1693 there is
Domine non sum dignus only.
When you receive the Consecrated Bread \ say ; Lord, I am not worthy
thou shouldst come under my Roof : Yet I beseech thee, speak the Word,
and my Soul shall be saved : Fill every corner of my Soul with thy Grace
and Spirit.1
Dr. Bernard also recommends the same verse from St. Matthew
at Receiving the Bread.'2' It appears in the Roman Missal as a
devotion for the celebrant immediately before he receives com
munion.
To return to instances of Agnus Dei : Thomas Morer bids the
communicant kneeling at the altar to say :
O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the World, grant me thy
Peace,
0 Lamb of God that takest away the Sins of the World, have Mercy
upon me.3
In another book of prayers there is also to be said before com
munion :
1 H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in Time
of Divine Service, sec. ed. London, Robinson, 1693, p. 40.
2 Edward Bernard, Private Devotion, Oxford, Litchfield and Clements, sec. ed. 1704,
Signature G. 6.
3 Thomas Morer, Kuriake Hemera, London, 1701, p. 569.
DEVOTIONS SUCH AS THE USE OF "AGNUS DEI". 59
O Lamb of God that takest away the Sins of the World, grant me thy
Peace.
O Lamb of God that takest away the Sins of the World, have Mercy
upon me.
. . . O Lord God, how I receive the Body and Blood of my most
Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, the price of my Redemption, is the very
wonder of my Soul ; yet I firmly believe upon the words of my Saviour, that
at this time they are graciously tendered to me ; I am sure it is so, though
I dispute not the manner.1
In James King's Sacramental Devotions which appeared in 1722
and the eighth edition in 1752 the Communicant is told to say at
Prostrating before the Altar :
O Lamb of God, that takest away the Sins of the World, Grant me thy
Peace.
O Lamb of God that takest away the Sins of the World, Have Mercy
upon me. 2
The same form may be found just before Communion in a prayer
book edited by the author of the Week's Preparation for the Sacra
ment.3
The Pious Country Parishioner has the same form, to be said
After the Consecration* and it continues thus in all editions that I
have seen down to 1836.
Immediately after Communion there are these devotions in a
book appearing with Royal patronage.
0 Lamb of God, who takest away the Sins of the World, have Mercy
upon me : By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat, thy Cross and Passion,
good Lord, deliver me.5
In Daniel Turner's private devotions, that remain still in manu
script, after the words " being now spiritually about to partake of
thy Flesh and Blood " there are found " Psalmodick Ejaculations
at the Holy Table, O Lamb of God," etc.6
So again drawing towards the end of the century :
1 An office or manual of devotions for the better observing the Lords-Day, London,
Newborough, 1702, p. 24.
2 James King, Sacramental Devotions, London, J. Hazard, 1722, p. 74.
3 The Church of England-Marts Private Devotions, ... by the author of the
Week's Preparation to the Sacrament. London, Warner, 1724, p. 56.
4 Pious Country Parishioner, London, J. Pemberton, sixth edition, 1732, p. 187.
5 Thomas Burnet, The Nature, Use and Efficacy of the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper, London, Bettesworth, 1731, p. 30. The book is dedicated " to His Royal
Highness The Duke, and Their Royal Highness the Princesses Mary and Louisa".
6 British Museum, Add. MS. 14,404 ff. 19 b and 20. For his life, see D.N.B. He
died in 1741,
60 DEVOTIONS SUCH AS THE USE OF "AGNUS DEI".
O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world have mercy
upon me ; O lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world grant me
thy peace. Amen. Lord Jesus. Amen.1
The widespread use of Agnus Dei as a private devotion imme
diately before communion must be the explanation, I venture to
think, of a circumstance told by the Rev. W. F. Clements, that the
congregation in a Wiltshire parish used to repeat these words. The
impression is given that the congregation said them aloud, to
gether ; 2 but this would have been brawling.
We have seen above that James King in his Sacramental Devo
tions bids the communicant say at the moment of Communion
certain prayers marked at Prostrating before the Altar* So Bishop
Cosin has set before some prayers at Communion this rubric :
When we are prostrate before the Altar .^
In the Pious Country Pa rishioner the communicant is given this
direction, when he goes up to the altar before the Offertory :
When you go to the Altar, fall prostrate, and say,
Assist me, O Lord &c.5
There is the same direction in the ninth edition of 1745. But
in the thirteenth, that of 1753, the fear of Hoadly or of his school
had done its work, and the direction appears as :
When you go to the Altar, meekly kneeling upon your Knees, say.
This may be the equivalent vi prostrate. But the proper meaning
of prostrate seems to be lying flat on the face. Dr. Bryan Duppa,
who died Bishop of Winchester in 1662, thus defines the word:
Of all these outward Gestures, Prostration is the lowest act of bodily
Reverence that can be used, when the Supplicant casting himself upon the
earth, acknowledgeth by that act, that he doth but cast dust to dust, that he
is more vile than the least grain of that earth he lies upon ; and this
posture best becomes us in times of great Affliction, and ever to be then
lowest, when our necessities are at the highest. . . .
But the more ordinary and more convenient for all persons, is Genu
flection.6
1 Brief Rules for the Holy Communion, London, T. Evans, 1776, p. 8r.
2J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore, London, Griffith Farran, 1894, P- 69-
3 J. King, Sacramental Devotions, London, Hazard, 1722, p. 74.
4 John Cosin, >4 Collection of Private Devotions, London, Luke Meredith, 1693, p.
237-
5 The Pious Country Parishioner, London, Pemberton, sixth ed. 1732, p. 184.
6 Bryan Duppa, Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion, London, Hensman, 1675, ppf
108, in. Part the first
"AMEJV" AT MOMENT OF COMMUNION. 61
THE SAYING OF AMEN AT THE DELIVERY OF COMMUNION.
During our period it was an admirable custom that Amen should
be said by the communicant at the delivery of the sacred elements.
Dr. Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely, who died in 1667, speaks of it
thus in his suggestions for a revision of the rubrics :
body and soul into j- everlasting Life.
Answer , by tfie Receiver -, Amen.1
In a tract attributed to Aldrich there is :
The Communicant to answer to it Amen : which without a Kubrick
ever was and is still the Practice of the Church of England.2
This is a noteworthy affirmation. And still more to be observed
is the teaching of the following catechism :
Why do the Communicants usually answer Amen as soon as the Minister
has said these Words? [the words of delivery]. . . .
The Communicants answer Amen at the end of these Words to profess
thereby their Faith of the mysterious Presence of Christ's Body and Blood
in the Sacrament.3
Some few of the devotional works which suggest the practice will
now be mentioned :
And as you stretch out your hands to receive the Body or Blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ, say, Amen. And lift up your Soul in Faith with this or
the like Ejaculation,
Come Lord Jesus unto thy humble servant.4
In 1724 the author of the Week's Preparation bids the com
municant at receiving say Amen to the prayer used by the minister.5
James King in his Sacramental Devotions bids the Communicant
say the words of delivery with the Priest; not a commendable
practice, it may be added. After " Everlasting Life "he tells him
to say, Amen? So, too, does Dr. Edward Lake;7 and in Mrs.
1 William Jacobson, Fragmentary Illustrations of the History of the Book of Com
mon Prayer, London, Murray, 1874, p. 82.
2 A reply to two discourses lately printed at Oxford concerning the Adoration of our
Blessed Savioiir in the holy Eucharist, Oxford, 1687, p. 7.
3 Edward Creffield, A Catechistical Explanation of the Dayly and Sunday Offices,
London, S. Keble, 1713, p. 85.
4 Rules for our more devout behaviour in the time of Divine Service, tenth edition,
London, Keble, 1704, p. 50. Licensed Feb. n, 1686.
5 The Church of England-Man's Private Devotions, ... by the author of the
Week's Preparation to the Sacrament. London, T. Warner, 1724, p. 56.
6 James King, Sacramental Devotions, London, J. Hazard, 1722, pp. 76, 77.
7 Edw. Lake, Officium Eiicharisticum, p. 68.
62 "AMEN" AT MOMENT OF COMMUNION.
Hopton's book of devotions, at the end, under the title of the
Sacrifice of a Devout Christian she adds the Amen to the words of
administration.
The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for me, preserve
my Body and Soul unto Everlasting Life. Amen.1
The first edition of the New Whole Duty of Man appeared in
1737. It contains this direction :
A hearty Amen to that excellent form, when the minister gives you the
bread and wine, saying The body of our Lord etc.2
Passing into the nineteenth century we find the custom :
When the Priest pronounces the words of delivery " Preserve thy body
and soul etc." the communicant should answer, Amen ; a practice rigidly
observed in the ancient church.3
To quote Ford again :
When the Minister delivereth the Bread, he shall say \
The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve
thy body and soul unto everlasting life.*
*Say softly Amen ; for here it is most proper and here, therefore, it was formerly
placed.4
It is much to be regretted that this ancient practice is now so
widely given up. Yet in the middle of the nineteenth century, before
the decadence of the last quarter set in, it was comparatively usual.
Communicants could be heard plainly saying their Amen as the
Eucharist was given to them. Now the practice has nearly dis
appeared.
Another insertion of Amen into the service was practised by Dr.
Edward Bernard, the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford
towards the end of the seventeenth century.
At the Prayer of Consecration, part is a prayer In which I joyn as humbly
and devoutly as I can, and putt my Amen to it at the words may be partakers
of his most blessed body and blood [Amen] who in the same night etc. At
which consecration I look up to the priest and see what hee do[e]s, with
these occasionall ejaculations, nor is there time to be found for more.5
The square brackets enclosing the Amen are in the original
manuscript.
1 [Susanna Hopton,] A Collection of Meditations and Devotions, London, Mid
winter, 1717, p. 415.
2 The New Whole Duty of Man, London, Bent, 1819, p. 152.
3 Richard Warner, Book of Common Prayer, Bath, Richard Cruttwell, 1806.
4 James Ford, The new devout Communicant, Ipswich, J. Raw, 1825, p. 116.
5 Bodleian Library, MS. Smith, 45, fo. 197.
LOCAL CUSTOMS. 63
There is another instance of a similar practice.
When the Priest pronounceth these words ; This is my Body, This is my
Blood &c. say, Amen. And, Lord, I believe thy real spiritual Presence,
beneficial to the Souls of Men. O Sacred Feast, wherein Christ himself
is received, and the Memory of his Passion renew'd ; our Minds fill'd with
Grace, and our future Glory secur'd by a dear and precious Pledge ! 1
The part of this prayer beginning at 0 sacred Feast is the anthem
O sacrum convivium at Magnificat in second vespers of Corpus
Christi, common to many breviaries, including the Sarum and
Roman.
OTHER CUSTOMS.
In North Wales the sign of the Cross made by the communicant
himself before communion persisted in the first half of the eigh
teenth century.
At the delivery of the^read and wine at the sacrament, several, before
they receive the bread or cup, though held out to them, will flourish a
little with their thumb to their faces, something like making the figure of a
cross.2
Bishop Wetenhall speaking in the person of the communicant
at the end of the service, says :
I depart, prayers being ended, with a serious and chearful heart, and
countenance ; I keep good thoughts in my mind, but yet pass not so re
served, but that I cheerfully salute any of my Christian brethren, I have
occasion ; remembering in the ancient Church, the Assemblies, especially
after every Communion, parted with an Holy kiss ; very seasonable may it
be, and a right charitable imitation of the feasts of Love> to invite any poor
communicants home to my Table.3
Dr. Johnson intended to carry this last precept into practice on
Easter Day 1765.
I invited home with me the man whose pious behaviour I had for
several years observed on this day, and found him a kind of Methodist,
full of texts, but ill-instructed. I talked to him with temper, and offered
him twice wine, which he refused. I suffered him to go without the
dinner which I had purposed to give him.4
1 H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in Time
of Divine Service, sec. ed. London, 1693, p. 40.
*From a MS. book of a Bp. of St Asaph, written about a century before publication
in British Magazine, London, 1835, vol. vii. p. 399.
3 [E. Wetenhall,] Enter into thy closet, 4th ed. London, Martyn, 1672, App. ch. viii.
p. 406.
4 Prayers and Meditations composed by Samuel Johnson, ed. George Strahan,
London, Cadell, 1785, p. 58.
64 LOCAL CUSTOMS.
When the service is over, Dr. Edward Lake gives this direc
tion, suggested it may be by Dr. Wetenhall :
Arising and making your Reverence towards the Altar, you depart with
a glad heart, and a chearful countenance ; preserve good thoughts in your
mind; yet be not sullen or morose • but salute any of your Christian Breth
ren you meet with.1
In the same way, at the end of the Communion Service, Dor-
rington thus advises the communicant :
Then rising from your Knees, kindly and courteously salute your
Fellow Communicants at the parting of the Congregation.2
It is very likely that these salutations were performed in the
Church. At this point a Week's Preparation bids the Communicant :
Here rising up, and making thine humble Adoration before the Throne of
Glory, say,
ZFallelujah ; Salvation be unto our God, and to the Lamb for ever.
Amen.
Depart with a glad heart, and a chearful Countenance?
This " humble adoration " must be a bow to the altar. It is so
called in the Coronation Service of William and Mary,4 and thus
continues even to the office of our present Gracious Sovereign.
The rubric inserted first in 1662 that the Consecrated Species
are not to be carried out of the church, but eaten and drunken by
the priest and communicants immediately after the blessing, was
directed against the profanity of the Puritans, or else it was a vain
attempt to stop the gibes of Roman Catholics. Up to 1662 there
was nothing in the rubrics of any of the recensions to forbid the
priest carrying the Eucharist from the church to the sick man ; he
was to minister the Sacrament to him and to those assembled to
communicate with him, not to celebrate the Eucharist. But after
1662 this was no longer lawful. A distinct office for the celebration
of the Eucharist in the sick man's house, if not in his chamber, was
provided, and the consecrated species were not to be taken out of
the church.
But like some other new rubrics it seems to have been long in
1 Edw. Lake, Officium Eucharisticum, p. 74, end of service.
2 Theophilus Dorrington, A Familiar Guide to . . . the Lord's Supper, London,
Aylmer, 1695, p. 163.
3 A Week's Preparation, 43rd ed. 1728, p. 156.
4J. Wickham Legg, Three Coronation Orders, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1900, p.
LOCAL CUSTOMS. 65
making its way. Anthony Sparrow in the editions of the Rationale
published after the year 1662 takes no notice of the direction that
the Eucharist is not to be carried out of the church, only repeating
the injunction of former editions that according to the Canon Law
what is consecrated is " all to be spent with fear and reverence by
the Communicants, in the Church".1 Another new rubric, that at
the time of the offertory the priest is to place so much bread and
wine upon the Holy Table as shall be sufficient, was, we know,
widely disregarded. So that Thorndike in a treatise written be
tween 1670 and 1672 is apparently not conscious that he is saying
anything opposed to the rules of the Church when he recommends
that the Eucharist be reserved between each celebration for the
sick and dying.
§ 4. And thus far I will particularize, as concerning the eucharist :
that the Church is to endeavour the celebrating of it so frequently, that it
may be reserved to the next communion. For in the mean time it ought
to be so ready for them, that pass into the other world, that they need
not stay for the consecrating of it on purpose for every one. The reason
of the necessity of it for all, which hath been delivered, aggravates it
very much in danger of death. And the practice of the Church attests it
to the utmost. Neither will there be any necessity of giving it in one kind
only ; as by some passages of antiquity may be collected, if common reason
could deceive in a subject of this nature.2
It is still more remarkable that the practice of reserving the
eucharist for the sick seems to have persisted in certain places,
almost into our time, as the late Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. John
Wordsworth, found in his own diocese.
And I am inclined to think that something like the custom of the first
Prayer-book, which is really nothing but a slight extension on one side and
restriction on the other of the primitive custom described by Justin Martyr
in the second century, viz., that of sending Communion by the Deacons
to the absent (Apol. i. 67), has had a greater traditional continuance among
us than is perhaps generally supposed. I have heard of a case of the
sacrament being taken to a sick woman directly after a public celebration
at Corfe Castle, fifty years ago, and I am told that the like tradition exists
at Pentridge. I shall be glad to know if it can be traced elsewhere.3
1 Anth. Sparrow, A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer, London, Garth-
wait, 1661, p. 279. The Communion. " Fear and reverence " are a translation of " cum
tremore et timore " of the Canon Law. (Gratian, Decreti iii. pars, de consecr. dist. ii.
cap. xxiii. Corpus luris Canonic, ed. Richter & Friedberg, Tauchnitz, 1879, t. i. col. 1321.)
2 Herbert Thorndike, The Reformation of the Church of England better than that
of the Council of Trent, ch. xxxix. § 4, in Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1854, vol. v. p. 578.
3 John Wordsworth, Further considerations on Public Worship, Salisbury, Brown,
1901, p. 15.
5
66 OPINIONS HELD ON THE EUCHARIST.
Whether the following notes from Clay worth, made in 1677,
record an instance of this practice on the particular Good Friday
there named is uncertain. It may be that the rector celebrated
again " in their houses " besides the public celebration in the church ;
but three private celebrations besides the public celebration seem to
demand a great trial of strength for the parish priest. There is
besides no record of those who were appointed to communicate
with the sick, who are, it may be noted, in each case three in
number, and are spoken of in the plural.
1677
April 8th. Palm-Sunday at Sacrament 57. Thomas the son of Thomas
Collingwood Labourer, & of Alice his Wife baptiz'd.
1 3th. Good- Friday; Communicants 43 ; & at home in their houses
such who were ill, 3.
1 5th. Easter-day; Communicants 106; and i6th at Francis John
son's house such as were ill, 3.1
If other instances become known, the case may become clearer.
There is a circumstance connected with the last communion of
Dr. Cosin, the Bishop of Durham immediately after the Restora
tion, which may be interpreted either to mean communion by
intinction, or to mean that the species of bread was to be dipped
in unconsecrated wine to render swallowing more easy ; the reader
may form an opinion as he is disposed. The Bishop
desired to have 2 Divines who were the King's Chaplaines then attend
ing at Whitehall to be sent for to him, and when they came desired
them to pray with him, and that he might receive the Sacrament . . .
and being thus ill the Divines asked him whether he would have the bread
only dipped in wine, and so take it, he answered, ' No, he would take it
in both kinds ' . . . And so, within half an hower after he had taken the
Sacrament, dyed as if he had been going to sleepe.2
OPINIONS HELD ON THE EUCHARIST.
It may be worth while to record here the opinions of some
strong Churchmen, Hamon L'estrange, John Evelyn, Robert Nelson,
and William Stevens, all laymen, on the doctrine of the holy
Eucharist.
Hamon L'estrange the layman, who published immediately
1 Harry Gill and Everard L. Guilford, The Rector's Book Clay worth Notts, Nott
ingham, Saxton, 1910, p. 29.
2 The Correspondence of John Cosin, Surtees Society, 1872, vol. Iv. part ii. p. xxxviii.
Hunter MSS. ix. 294, most likely at Durham.
OPINIONS HELD ON THE EUCHARIST. 67
before the Restoration a comparative study of the first book of
Edward the Sixth, the Scottish Liturgy, and the Elizabethan book,
comments thus on the Prayer of Consecration :
Saying, Take eat, this is my Body^\
The recital of these words pass in the common vogue for a Consecration ;
were I Romishly inclin'd, I should rather impute unto them the power of
Transubstantiation, for that a bare Narrative can be qualified to consecrate,
is certainly new Divinity, unknown to Scripture, and Antiquity interpreting
it : Therefore I must adhere in judgement to those learned men, who de
rive Consecration from the word of God and Prayer, the very way by which
our Saviour himself sanctified those Elements in his first institution.1
In 1671, Evelyn was desired by a certain Father Patrick to
give him an account in writing of the Eucharistic doctrine of the
Church of England.
The doctrine of the Church of England is, or at least to my best un
derstanding, imports, that after the prayer, or words of consecration, the
symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ, after a sacra
mental, spiritual, and real manner; and that all initiated, or baptized
persons, of competent age and capacity, who by unfained repentance, and
a faithful consideration of the life, doctrine, and passion of our B. Saviour,
resolve to undertake his holy religion, and to persist in it, are made realy
participants of the benefits of his body and blood for the remission of
their sins, and the obtaining of all other spiritual graces ; inasmuch, as it
is a revival of the sacrifice of Christ on the crosse, once offered for sin, and
for ever effectual ; and a renewing of the covenant of grace to the penitent.
But she who affirmes this, holds also, that even after the words of con
secration (or, rather, efficacy of the benediction) the bodily substance of
the elements remaine.
* * *
And upon this account, the mysterious presence of Christ she holds to
be a greate miracle, engaging the infinite power of God, to render the flesh
and blood of Christ so present in the elements by effect and benediction,
as that the worthy receiver as really communicates in reference to his spirit,
as he sacramentally communicates in reference to his body ; the mystical
presence being present with the material, by a supernatural conjunction
realy tendered to the faithfull.2
Also we may note the agreement of Robert Nelson with the
opinion that there should be a celebration of the Eucharist every
Sunday.
They that are acquainted with Ecclesiastical History, know very well,
that the Eucharist in the purest ages of the Church, made a part of their
1 Hamon L'estrange, Esq.; The Alliance of Divine Offices, ch. 7, letter K.
London, Broom, 1659, p. 215. It went through two more editions, in 1690 and 1699.
2 Diary of John Evelyn, ed. Bray and Wheatley, Bickers, 1879, vol. iii. p. 382.
5*
68 OPINIONS HELD ON THE EUCHARIST.
Publick Service ; and when the Devotion of Christians began to decline,
they yet always upon the Lord's Day celebrated the Christian Sacrifice. Our
Second Service at the Altar seems defective without a conformable Practise
to Antiquity in this point, and the Holy Exercises of the Lord's Day appear
to want their due Perfection without these Eucharistical Devotions. To
this purpose, our Church has encouraged a constant weekly Communion,
by permitting it to be celebrated where three or four Persons are ready and
willing to Communicate, as being assured by our Saviour that where two or
three are gathered together in his Name, there he is himself in the midst of
them. And if the Parochial Minister should begin with such a small Num
ber, it is likely they would quickly increase, at least it will demonstrate his
own Zeal to shew forth the Lord's Death, and may bring a Blessing upon
his Parish, as well as upon the other Labours of his Holy Function.
In Order to quicken the establishing of this Primitive Devotion, I can
not forbear suggesting an Observation made by several of the Reverend
Clergy, who have been zealous in this Matter, That where Communions
have been frequent, the Number of the Communicants have sensibly increased ;
which, I think, ought to be no small encouragement to have the Holy
Mysteries celebrated in all Parish Churches every Lord's Day.1
*
William Stevens, born in 1732, died in 1807 : though a layman,
he devoted himself to the study of theology, and shortly before his
death edited the Works of Jones of Nayland. In 1773 he published
under the name of a Layman his treatise on the Church, which went
through numerous editions.
The reason why deacons were not allowed to consecrate the Lord's
Supper was because this sacrament was always believed to succeed in the
place of sacrifices ; and as none beside the high priest, and inferior priests,
were permitted to offer sacrifices under the Jewish law, so none but bishops
and presbyters, who alone are priests in the Christian sense of that name,
consecrated the Lord's Supper?
The large number of editions of this work, the last in 1833,
testifies to the support given to his opinions.
From the opinions set forth by the laity themselves we may
turn to the teaching contained in the books written for them and
used by them during our period.
So immediately after the Restoration, Annand writes :
The bread is blessed ; that is, prayer is made that the bread might be
1 Robert Nelson, The great duty of frequenting the Christian Sacrifice, London,
Churchill, 1706, preface, A 3, b.
2 William Stevens, A treatise on the nature and constitution of the Christian
Church, new ed. Rivington, published by desire of the Society for promoting Christian
Knowledge, 1810, p. 28.
OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 69
to the faithful soul the body of Christ broken for its sin, and after the
institution is read it becomes so.1
Daniel Brevint, noted for his protestant attitude, writes thus of
the Eucharist in what is perhaps his best known work :
This Bread, which is the Body of the Lord, continues new.2
Further on :
Therefore whensoever Christians approach to the dreadful Mystery,
and to the Lamb of God lying and sacrificed (as some say the holy Nicene
Council speaks) upon the holy Table ; it concerns their main interest in
point of Salvation, as well as in other duties, to take a special care, not to
lame, and deprive the grand Sacrifice of its own due Attendance.8
Comber, Dean of Durham, puts into the prayers of his com
municants such expressions as these :
Thou hast made me drink of thy blood and given me thy Soul, thy
Life, and thy Spirit.4
later on :
When by Faith I see that Body which all the Angels of Heaven wor
ship.5
and again :
0 my Ccelestial food, the Bread that came down from Heaven.6
In a very popular book of devotion there are these expressions :
In this thy Holy Sacrament, thou communicatest Body and Blood,
Flesh and Spirit, thy whole Manhood, yea, thy very Godhead too.7
THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE.
Much has been said in the way of denial of the existence of
teaching in the Church of England that the Eucharist is a sacrifice.
As an answer to this, it is enough to point to John Johnson or to
Waterland as authors of repute who have maintained this doctrine.
Yet it may be useful to examine the teaching of other divines
1 William Annand, Fides Catholica, London, T. R. for Edward Brewster, 1661, p.
443-
2 Daniel Brevint, The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice, Oxford, 1673, p. 15.
3 ibid. p. 94.
4 Thomas Comber, A Companion to the Altar, London, Martyn, 1675, Partition III.
Sect. iii. § 13, p. 284.
5 ibid. § 4, p. 276. 6 ibid. § 6, p. 277.
7 A Week's Preparation, Monday's Meditations in the Morning, 43rd ed. Keble,
1728, p. 4.
70 OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE.
in the Church of England who may be cited to speak on this point
during our period.
Dr. Stillingfleet, when Bishop of Worcester, in what may be
his last Charge, speaks of Christian Priests offering sacrifices in
common with priests of all other religions.
But it is the peculiar Honour of the Christian Religion, to have an
Order of Men set apart, not meerly as Priests, to offer Sacrifices (for that
all Religions have had) but as Preachers of Righteousness, to set Good and
Evil before the People committed to their Charge.1
Robert Nelson must be admitted as a representative Churchman.
He writes :
Q. What was the End and Design of instituting the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper?
A. To be the Christian Sacrifice, wherein Bread and Wine are offered
to God, to acknowledge him Lord of the Creatures ; and accordingly in
the ancient Church they were laid on the Table by the Priest, as they are
still order'd to be done by the Rubrick in the Church of England, and
tendred to God by this short Prayer, Lord, we offer thy own out of what
thou hast bountifully given us ; which by Consecration being made Symbols
of the Body and Blood of Christ, we thereby represent to God the Father
the Passion of his Son. . . .
Q. After what manner was the Consecration of the Elements of Bread
and Wine performed in the primitive Church ?
A. The Priest that officiated, not only rehearsed the Evangelical His
tory of the Institution of this Holy Sacrament, and pronounced those
words of our Saviour, this is my Body, this is my Blood ; but he offered up
a Prayer of Consecration to God, beseeching him, that he would send
down his Holy Spirit upon the Bread and Wine presented to him on the
Altar, and that he would so sanctifie them, that they might become the Body
and Blood of his Son Jesus Christ ; not according to the gross Compages
or Substance, but as to the Spiritual Energy and Vertue of his Holy Flesh and
Blood, communicated to the blessed Elements by the Power and Opera
tion of the Holy Ghost descending upon them ; whereby the Body and
Blood of Christ is verily and indeed taken by the Faithful in the Lord's Supper?
It should be remembered that this work is said to have had the
largest sale in England of any book except the Bible.3
The holy Bishop of Sodor and Man, whose > Sacra Privata was
the standard book of prayer for most English Churchmen until the
middle of the nineteenth century, puts this prayer before the
communicant :
1 Edward Stillingfleet, Ecclesiastical Cases, London, Mortlock, 1698, p. 5.
2 Robert Nelson, A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts, London, Churchill, 1705,
third ed. p. 490.
3 See below, ch. xi. p. 339.
OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 71
Immediately after the Consecration. We offer unto Thee, our King and
our God, this bread and this cup.
We give Thee thanks for these and for all Thy mercies, beseeching
Thee to send down Thy Holy Spirit upon this sacrifice, that He may make
this bread the Body of Thy Christ, and this cup the Blood of Thy Christ :
and that all we, who are partakers thereof, may thereby obtain remission of
our sins, and all other benefits of His Passion.1
John Johnson, the author of the Unbloody Sacrifice and Altar
published in 1718, and Waterland, the author of A Review of the
Doctrine of the Eucharist as laid down in Scripture and Antiquity,
published in 1737, could not agree in their teaching on the nature
of the Eucharistic sacrifice, but both taught that there was a
sacrifice in the Eucharist.
Christopher Beeke took his M.A. from St. John's College Cam
bridge in 1740, and he died in 1798, aged 89. He seems to have
seen that Johnson, the author of the Unbloody Sacrifice, and Water-
land, were really at one in their teaching on the sacrifice in the
Eucharist but did not understand one another's words.
The Heart of the Question, therefore, turns upon this Point, viz.
Whether the Fathers had the same Notion of a material Sacrifice that Dr.
Waterland has? If they had, certain it is, they did not believe the Ele
ments to be a Sacrifice, properly so call'd, tho' they frequently so called
them : But if they had not that Notion, then there is great Reason to con
clude, that they believed the Elements to be properly what they called
them, viz. a Sacrifice. That they rejected all material Sacrifice, in Dr.
WaterlancCs sense, is beyond all Question ; and so it is, that they did not
reject all material Sacrifice in Mr. Johnson's Sense ; for Fathers, Councils,
Liturgies do all conspire, in teaching the Eucharist to be a material
Offering, an Offering or Oblation of Bread and Wine, as Figures, &c. for a
Memorial of the grand Sacrifice?
Samuel Hardy took his degree at Cambridge from Emmanuel
College in 1741. In 1784 he was Rector of Little Blakenham in
Suffolk and Lecturer of Enfield in Middlesex. He edited a Greek
Testament in 1768 which he dedicated to the Archbishop of Canter
bury, Dr. Frederick Cornwallis. This passed through three editions
at least. He also published a number of works on the Eucharist,
urging daily communion, or at least every Sunday, and insisting upon
the doctrine of a material, true, and proper sacrifice in the Eucharist,
maintaining that the Eucharist is consecrated by the descent of
1 Thomas Wilson, Sacra Privata, Sunday, Lord's Supper, in Works, Oxford, J. H.
Parker, 1860, vol. v. p. 74.
2 Christopher Beeke, The Eucharistical Sacrifice, London, Astley, 1739, p. 163.
72 OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE.
the Holy Ghost upon the elements. He died in 1793, aged 73.
But though such a scholar, and so prolific a writer, yet his name
does not appear in the Dictionary of National Biography ', and I
can only find his works on the Eucharist in the catalogue of the
British Museum.
To begin with the Eucharist prov'd to be a Material Sacrifice.
Against the Lutherans and Calvinists he affirms, while rejecting the
doctrine of the Papists, as follows :
But to deny that the Eucharist is a true and proper, tho' Representative,
Sacrifice, is to err in the contrary extream. (p. 4.)
In the next page he attacks Waterland :
The latest and best Writer [Waterland] against this Doctrine has
passed over the best and strongest Arguments that are brought to prove
the Eucharist to be a Material Sacrifice : I mean the Determinations of
General Councils : the Ancient Liturgies ; and the express Words of Jesus
Christ, and his Holy Apostles, (p. 5.)
From thisghe foresees that the Consequence must be that
The Christian Sacrifice would be constantly offered, and as constantly
received by all the Faithful, (p. 6.)
He proclaims that
the Apostles were, and consequently that all their Successors were to be,
sacrificing Priests, (p. n.)
In the first page of the Appendix he goes so far as to speak of
the presence of the Natural Body and Blood of Our Lord in
the Eucharist.
When we place the Bread and Wine upon the Altar, (which is done
immediately before the Prayer for the Church Militant), we solemnly offer
them to Almighty God. And this we believe our Church countenances by
directing us to beseech God to accept our Alms and Oblations. . . . We
believe that the Holy Ghost descends upon them, and makes them, in
Divine Construction the Natural Body and Blood of Christ.
He had published in 1746 a work with the title of:
The Indispensable Necessity of Constantly Celebrating the Christian
Sacrifice, plainly proved from Scripture and Antiquity. (London, Hitch,
etc. 1746.)
in which he presses upon Churchmen the importance of the
Eucharist in the Reformation of Manners :
But Men may talk what they will of Reformation, and propose a thou
sand Schemes to bring about a Change; but, while the Eucharist is
OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 73
neglected as it is, in vain may we expect to see the Morals of the People
mended, (p. 2.)
In 1 763 Samuel Hardy published another work which he intended
as an answer to Warburton's Rational Account. He dedicated this
answer to the clergy and its title is
A new plain and scriptural Account of the nature and ends of the holy
Eucharist, London 1763.
Of the notions contained in this work the following extracts
may give some idea :
You cannot, my Reverend Brethren, but know that our Reformers
laboured hard to restore the Practice of Daily Communions. It is certain
too, that they embraced the Sacrificial Notion of the Eucharist, (p. [vii].)
* * *
Mr. Mede had declared, that the Notion of a Sacrifice in the Eucharist
would be sufficiently established, if the Priest was directed to place the
Bread and Wine upon the Holy Altar, (p. [viii].)
* * *
By the word Oblations in the Prayer for the Church Militant, the
Convocation meant the Bread and Wine. From all which it is certain,
that the Doctrine of our Church, concerning the Eucharistical Sacrifice is
the same Now, as it was Then. (pp. viii-ix.)
Towards the end of his life Samuel Hardy determined to set
down a permanent record of his opinions in a work that he intended
to live. It was published in 1784 and he dedicates it to the Bishops
and Clergy of England. In the dedication he says :
The Primitive Notions of the Eucharist, which surely were founded on
Gospel Principles, — and some Years ago prevailed in the Church of England,
and were indeed its chief Support, — have been ridiculed of late ; and, as
if Ridicule was indeed the Test of Truth, as Shaftsbury pretended, Men
have suffered themselves to be laughed out of their Strong Holds, and are
now exposed, naked and defenceless, to the Storm ! — And there is but one
Being in the Universe who can shelter us !
Indeed since our Altars have been forsaken, Dissentions have been
greatly multiplied ; — Dissentions, which now disgrace this Country, and
endanger our Liberty. And can we wonder at it, if the very Band of
Union, which is the Eucharist, be neglected by us ! For since the Bread is
One, we, being many, are One Body ; for, we are all Partakers of that
One Bread !
It has indeed been insinuated, sometimes, that the Asserters of a
Material Sacrifice in the Eucharist, have a Tendency to Popery ; and that
the Notion itself leads directly to Transubstantiationl
1 Samuel Hardy, The Scripture-Account of the Nature and Ends of the Holy Eu
charist, London, Benjamin White, 1784. Dedication, p. ix.
74 OPINIONS ON THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE.
Thus even in what is called the darkest hour of the Church of
England the doctrine of a material and proper sacrifice in the Euch
arist did not cease to be asserted. That there is a sacrifice com
memorative, if nothing more, is also taught. Commenting on the
parable of the Prodigal Son and the return of the Gentiles, Dr.
George Home, Bishop of Norwich, says :
And, lastly, the ministers were to prepare the Christian sacrifice, on
which the now accepted Gentiles were to feast at the table of their
heavenly father, singing and making melody to the Lord, with angels and
archangels and with all the company of heaven.1
Dr. William Cleaver, Bishop of Chester, published at Oxford
with the imprimatur of the Vice-Chancellor a sermon in which it is
assumed that we are commanded to eat and drink the body and
blood of our Lord in form of a feast on a sacrifice.
But if we are commanded to eat and drink this body and blood in
form of a feast on a sacrifice ... it would increase the difficulty to
suppose, that we do not obtain these benefits in a way analogous to that,
by which the benefits are derived from every sacrifice.2
The Bishop also published about the same time another sermon,
in which we find the acknowledgement that the doctrine of a
material Sacrifice in the Eucharist was held by writers of great
weight and character in the English Church.
The great object with our Reformers was, whilst they acknowledged the
doctrine of the Real Presence, to refute that of Transubstantiation ; as it
afterwards was to refute the notion of Impanation or Consubstantiation.
They took much pains likewise to shew from the Scriptures, as well as
from the authority of the earlier Fathers, that this rite was not a material
Sacrifice ; an idea which later Writers notwithstanding, of great weight and
character in our Church, have still supported.
* * *
I see nothing plainer, no interpretation of this Sacrament more easy
and simple, none more rational, than that it is a representation and
memorial of that Sacrifice, or, in the language of our Church, " a continual
remembrance of the Sacrifice of the death of Christ," as well as the means
by which every man may apply to himself the new Covenant of grace, pur
chased by that Sacrifice.3
1 George Home, Discourses on several Subjects and Occasions, third ed. London,
1799, vol. ii. p. 331.
2 William Cleaver, Pardon and Sanctification proved to be privileges annexed to
the due use of the Lord's Supper, as a feast upon a sacrifice, Oxford, Fletcher, 1791, p.
19.
3 William Cleaver, A Sermon on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, Oxford,
Fletcher, 1790, pp. 2, 17.
VALUE Of "TABLE PRAYERS" 75
The famous Jones of Nayland who died in 1800, speaks thus of
the alms to be given during the collection at the offertory :
when with the holy oblation of Christ's body and blood, it is right we
should offer ourselves and our worldly substance to be consecrated with the
offering of the eucharistic sacrifice.1
In another place, insisting that the Church is holy, he adds :
It is holy in its sacraments ; our baptism is an holy baptism, from the
Holy Spirit of God ; the Lord's Supper is an holy sacrifice.2
Sir George Pretyman Tomline, who was Bishop of Lincoln from
1787 to 1820, published a Refutation of Calvinism, with other works
in Divinity. In commenting upon the thirty-first Article of Religion
he says the Eucharist
is a commemorative and not a propitiatory sacrifice; it is not itself a
sacrifice for sin, but it is a feast upon a sacrifice.3
So again only eight years before the rise of the Tractarian Move
ment we find the following teaching given to communicants :
As the Eucharist takes place of the Sacrifice of the temple, it is,
therefore, not improperly called Christian Sacrifice . . . the represen
tation of Christ's own offering or sacrifice, from whence the Altar of his
church has its name.4
VALUE OF "TABLE PRAYERS".
The Puritans tried to make the celebrant say in the reading
desk, not at the altar itself, the Missa Catechumenorum as the Latins
or Typica as the Greeks call it, or Table Prayers as it was mockingly
named some sixty years ago. The Puritans did not want frequent
Communion, and the celebrant going up to the altar reminded them
that this second service was about to begin. Churchmen, therefore,
tried to insist on the second service being said at the altar, with the
teaching which the going up to the altar involved.
The Priest standing at the Communion Table, seemeth to give us an
Invitation to the Holy Sacrament, and minds us of our Duty, viz. To
^William Jones (of Nayland), Churchman's Catechism, in Works, Rivington, 1801,
vol. xi. p. 419.
2 idem. Essay on the Church, ibid. vol. iv. p. 403.
3 George Pretyman [Tomline], Elements of Christian Theology, London, 1709 vol
H. P- 507.
4 James Ford, The new devout Communicant, 5th ed. Ipswich, 1825, PP- 14 and 15.
76 VALUE OF « TABLE PRA YERS"
Receive the Holy Communion, some at least every Sunday ; and though
we neglect our Duty, 'tis fit the Church should keep her standing.1
A little later on Dr. Bisse says much the same :
And as the Church gives it the name of the Communion-Service, so it
orders it to be read at the Communion-Table : and thus by retaining the
ancient place and name, as memorials of her primitive zeal, she testifies to
all her Children, that there ought to be now in these days, as in the days of
old, an holy Communion, whenever this Service is appointed, that is, on
every Lord's-day and on every Holy-day, whether a Festival or Fast.2
Dr. Seeker, when Bishop of Oxford, argues from this use of the
first part of the Eucharist that it is an indication of a desire for a
celebration on every Sunday and Holiday :
Part of the Office for it [the Eucharist] is read every Lord's Day in
every Church, for an Admonition of what it were to be wished the People
could be brought to.3
Though the laity could not be persuaded to approach the Holy
Table frequently, yet the going up to the altar every Sunday and
holiday by the priest was thought to be such a warning that the
Eucharist should then be celebrated, that Churchmen could not give
it up. It was a weekly indication of duty, too often disregarded.
They were prepared to look upon the Eucharistic as one undivided
service. They could not know of the plausible attempts made in
our day to show that after all, the missa catechumenorum is different
in kind from the missa fidelium, because the missa catechumenorum
is a choir service with its lessons in the epistle and gospel, and
psalm in the mutilated introit ; though this missa catechumenorum
has now for so many ages been joined on to the offertory, consecra
tion, and communion in the missa fidelium that the two are considered
inseparable.4 The position may be strengthened by the considera
tion that in the Roman rite, the bishop says the missa catechumenorum
at his throne, which is usually at one end of the choir, and he does not
approach the altar until the offertory. It is a pity that the Puritans
were not told that by saying the first part of the Communion
service up to the Offertory at the desk, they were doing something
Roman and Episcopal. They would have been puzzled to determine
which course they should think the better to follow.
1 Richard Hart, Parish Churches Turn'd into Conventicles . . . by reading the
Communion Service, or any part thereof in the Desk, London, 1683, p. 19.
2 Thomas Bisse, The beauty of holiness in the Common Prayer, sec. ed. 1721, Lon
don, Taylor and Innys, Sermon iv. p. 124.
3 Thomas Seeker, Eight Charges, London, 1771. Second Charge, p. 62.
4 Fernand Cabrol, Revue du Clerge fran$ais, 1900, aout, p. 561, and septembre, p.
5. See also my Three Chapters in Recent Liturgical Research, S.P.C.K. 1903, p. 14.
CHAPTER IV.
OBSERVANCE OF THE DUTY OF DAILY SERVICE.
THE period with which we are dealing does not call for any de
scription of the Presbyterian or Independent services ; or of the
holes and corners into which the Church of England people were
driven when they would worship Almighty God during what used
to be called the broken times, or, more plainly, the great Rebellion.
But the readiness with which the people returned to the use of the
Book of Common Prayer is some evidence that they were glad to
escape from the dreariness of the presbyterian and independent
preachings.
Even before the King returned they had begun the old service
again. In April 1660 Anthony Wood has this entry:
Common Prayer was first of all read at Magdalen parish <church>
in the beginning of this moneth after it had been omitted in Oxon to be read
in public places since the surrender of Oxon or in 1647 ; see English
History <p.> 1119. . . . Read soon after in severall College Chappells,
I think Merton the first, <see> Black book, p. 7 <then added> it was not
read in Merton College till about 20 of June.1
And again another entry corroborating the last note :
June 20, or thereabouts, Common Prayer restored in College chappells.2
Later on there is a retrospect at the end of 1660 :
And that they might draw the vulgar from the aforesayd praying and
preaching which was still exercised in som churches and houses, they re
stored the organ at Christ Church, Magdalen, New, and St. John's
College<s>, together with the singing of prayers after the most antient
way : to which places the resort of people (more out of novelty I suppose
than devotion) was infinitely great.3
Whatever motive may be suggested the fact remains that great
1 Bodleian Library, Tanner MS. 102, fo. 70 (ol. 136), printed in Life and Times of
Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society, 1891, vol. i. p. 313.
2 ibid. p. 319. 3 ibid. p. 357.
77
y8 OBSERVANCE OF THE DUTY OF DAILY SERVICE.
numbers delighted in the old services. They began the old service
at the cathedral church of Worcester on August 31, 1660 :
at six in the morning the first morning prayer [was] said in the body of
the church according to ancient custom.
and on Sept. 2, 1660
There was a very great assembly at morning prayer, by six in the
morning, in the Cathedral of Worcester ; and at nine o'clock there appeared
again at prayers all the gentry &C.1
The daily service was likewise restored in the Chapel Royal, as
we find from the following order, dated Dec. 13, 1663 :
The gentlemen being decentely habited in their gownes and surplices
(not in cloakes and bootes and spurrs) shall come into the Chappell
orderly together and attend God's service at the hour of ten and foure on
the weeke dayes and at nine and foure on Sunday es and Sermon dayes.2
The word 'gown' here has the significance of a cassock. And
' orderly ' would seem to direct some sort of procession, not
haphazard, in ones or twos at a time, as is still done in some colle
giate churches, without blame.
The following order has no date, but it would seem to have been
issued soon after the Restoration :
As Our expresse pleasure is, that Our Chappell be all the Yeare kept
both morning and evening, with solemne musick like a Collegiate Church,
unlesse it be at such times in the Summer, or other times when Wee are
pleased to spare it.3
So also daily service is restored in parish churches. Mr. Pepys
being in Fleet Street early on July 14, 1664, says :
hearing a psalm sung, I went into St. Dunstan's, and there heard prayers
read, which, it seems, is done there every morning at six o'clock.
In dealing more at length with the practice of daily service
throughout the year it may assist the reader to consider the subject
under three heads. The first will deal with the matter as en
joined by authority, such as Visitation Articles, Charges, and books
or writings by ecclesiastics of eminence. The second will treat of the
records of the opportunities of daily prayer offered by the parochial
clergy, as shown in the church time-tables which have come down
to us. The third will be based upon incidental mention of attend-
1 John Noake, Worcester Sects, Longmans, 1861, p. 94, from the Townsend MS.
2 The Old Cheque Book, ed. Rimbault, Camden Society, 1872. New Series III.
p. 82.
3 A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal
Household, printed for the Society of Antiquaries, London, 1790, p. 360.
DAIL Y SER VICE RECOMMENDED BY A UTHORIT Y. 79
ance by the laity upon the daily service, to be found in writings of
all kinds during the period under consideration. Some amount of
overlapping may be detected here and there in the sections, for it has
been found a hard matter to make a clean cut division between the
three. Nevertheless an attempt at classification seemed better than
no attempt at all.
As RECOMMENDED BY AUTHORITY.
Preaching before King Charles the Second at Whitehall, the
Bishop of Ely, Dr. Laney, said :
Our Church. . . . That they might not want what all Churches ever
had ; so ordered our Liturgie, that by it we might with safety and true de
votion, daily Sacrifice to the praise and honor of God.1
The numerous visitation articles of this time show much una
nimity in asking if the daily service be said, and without mutilation.
For example, in 1664, the Bishop of Lincoln inquires
VI. Doth your Parson, Vicar, or Curate, in reading the daily Morning
and Evening Service ... use the form and words prescribed in the Book of
Common-Prayer, without any addition, omission, or alteration of the same ? 2
The same inquiry was made by the Dean two years later.3 Also
in the Diocese of Winchester in i662.4 And in Oxford in 1672 ;5
Peterborough in 1 662 ; 6 St. Davids in 1662 ;7 and a number of other
Articles of Visitation the same inquiry is made ; but it would be
wearisome to enumerate them. The service is confessedly of daily
obligation ; the question only is : how is it said ?
Jeremy Taylor in his rules, issued between 1661 and 1667, to
the Clergy of the Dioceses of Down and Connor, speaks thus of the
daily service :
77. Every minister is obliged, publicly or privately, to read the common
prayers every day in the week, at morning and evening ; and in great towns
and populous places conveniently inhabited, it must be read in churches,
that the daily sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving may never cease.8
1 B. Laney, Two Sermons of Prayer to God, London, T. Garthwaite, 1668, p. 7.
3 Articles of Visitation . . . Benjamin, Lord Bishop of Lincoln, London, Garthwaite,
1664, p. 4.
sibid. Michael Honywood, Dean of Lincoln, London, Seile, 1666, p. 4.
4 ibid. George, Bp. of Winchester, London, Garthwaite, 1662, p. 4.
5 ibid. Nathanael, Lord Bishop of Oxford, London, Hooke, 1672, p. 4.
6 ibid. Benjamin, Lord Bishop of Peterborough, London, A. Seile, 1662, p. 5.
^ibid. William, Bishop of St. David, London, Garthwaite, 1162, p. 4.
8 Jeremy Taylor, Rules and Advices to the Clergy of the Diocess of Down and
Connor, § vii. in Whole Works, ed. by Reginald Heber, London, Ogle, 1822, vol. xiv. p. 505.
8o DAIL Y SERVICE RECOMMENDED BY A UTHORITY.
In 1669 the Archdeacon of Durham at his Easter Visitation
gave the following directions to the Curates of his two livings of
Sedgefield and Easington :
That the Mattens and Evensong shall be (according to the rubrick)
said dayly, in the chancells of each his parrish churches, throughout the
year, without the le[a]st variation.
That the houres for dayly prayer on working dayes shall be six in the
morning, and six in the evening, as the most convenient for labourers and
men of busyness.1
At Manchester, the Warden and Fellows, in a statute dated
May 6, 1671, ordain that the singing men and boys " who shall per
form the prayers and other daily divine services in the Church of
the aforesaid College " 2 are to submit to the rules of the College.
Dr. Edward Lake in his Officium Eucharisticum, first published,
it would seem, in 1673, follows Cosin's Collection of Private De
votion in inculcating the observance of the five Precepts of the
Church, in the fourth of which is urged the importance for the lay
man of attendance on daily Mattins and Evensong in the Church.
Next to the Holy Commandments and Injunctions of the Gospel, be
diligent to observe the Precepts of the Church, viz.
* # #
4. To repair every day Morning and Evening (unless there be a just and
unfeigned cause to the contrary) unto some Church or Chappel for Publick
Prayers, unto which God hath in a more peculiar manner annexed his
Blessing, that where two or three are gathered together in his Name he
will be in the midst of them.3
At a visitation held in 1674 by the Archdeacon of Durham it
is asked :
Besides the ordinary offices for Sundayes and Feastivalls, and dayly
prayers throughout the yeare, hath there been . . .4
The daily services are supposed, and obligatory. A little later
on, in the Injunctions preparatory to the Bishop's Visitation, there
is this order :
4. That the Rubrick enjoyning Dayly Prayer (soe much insisted on by
the late Bishopp and both Archdeacons) be observed by all Preists and
1 Miscellanea, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 129.
2 [S. Hibbert,] History of the Foundations of Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834,
vol. ii. p. 7.
3Edw. Lake, Officium Eucharisticum, p. no before evening prayers.
4 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. n.
DAIL Y SER VICE RECOMMENDED BY A UTHORIT Y. 8 1
Deacons (as enjoyned) either publickly or privately, not being lett by sick
ness or some urgent cause of like importance.1
In 1680 when Bishop Patrick was at St. Paul's Covent Garden,
he made arrangements for no less than four services daily. They
already had Mattins and Evensong daily, for
Some pious persons indeed had desired prayers at the hour of ten in
the morning, and three in the afternoon, which they maintained by a
voluntary contribution. These [extra services] therefore were ordered to
be at six o'clock in the morning, and seven at night in summer time, (before
trading began, and when it was done,) that servants might resort unto them.
Which they did very much, and I hope will continue to do. The other
prayers also still continue at ten and three, to which the gentry and better
sort of people, who maintain them are wont to come.2
Servants are not of necessity here domestic servants, but what
the French call employes.
In a Visitation of the Archdeaconry of Northumberland held in
April 1684 the third requirement is :
III. That the rubricke injoyneing Dayly Prayer be observed duely by
all Priests and Deacons, either publiquely or at least privately, not being
lett by sickness or other reasonable cause.3
Dr. Fell, when Bishop of Oxford, spoke thus at a visitation in
1685 °f those clergy who are constantly excusing themselves from
their duties :
If I require a constant diligence in offering the daily sacrifice of
Prayer for the people, at least at those returns which the Church enjoins,
the usual answer is, they are ready to do their duty, but the people will not
be prevailed with to join with them.4
In 1686, Dr. Francis Turner, then Bishop of Ely, tells his
Clergy that
there is one thing more which I do exceedingly long to see introduc't,
and would fain obtain ; that which the Kubrick in the true Intent of it
still exacts of you, to have Morning and Evening Prayer every day of the
week in your Church?
1 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 17.
2 The autobiography of Symon Patrick, Bishop of Ely, Oxford, I. H. Parker, 1839,
p. go.
3 Miscellanea, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 282.
4 Reprinted in the Student, or the Oxford Monthly Miscellany, No. i, January i,
1750, p. 8. Dr. Seeker, when Bishop of Oxford, refers to this : " Were I to repeat to
you the strong expressions which my great Predecessor Bishop Fell used, in requiring
this Part of ecclesiastical Duty, they would surprise you". (Eight Charges, Lond.
1771. Second charge, p. 76.)
5 Francis Turner, A Letter to the Clergy of the Dioecess of Ely, Cambridge, Hayes,
1686, p. 12.
6
82 DAILY SERVICE RECOMMENDED BY AUTHORITY.
Dr. Symon Patrick, afterwards Bishop of Ely, opens a chapter
in his book on prayer, published first in 1686, with these words :
Chap. XIX. Of Daily Publick Assemblies and of Hours, and Gestures
of Prayer.
It may be thought, perhaps, by some, that I go too far, in pressing
a daily attendance upon the Public Prayers.1
It has been seen above2 that, at St. Paul's Covent Garden,
during his incumbency, he provided four daily services.
Thomas Comber, who afterwards became Dean of Durham,
published in 1687 A Discourse concerning the daily Frequenting the
Common Prayer^ in which he exhorts the faithful to a daily atten
dance at church.
A Doctor of Medicine, John Mapletoft, published in 1687 A
persuasive to the Conscientious frequenting the daily Publick Prayers
of the Church of England. It was issued at London, by Kittilby.
It may be inferred from Ken's sermon on the death of Lady
Maynard that he had established daily morning and evening prayer
in his first cure of Little Easton. As Bishop of Bath and Wells in
1688 he exhorts his clergy to daily service:
But your greatest Zeal must be spent for the Publick Prayers, in the
constant and devout use of which, the Publick Safety, both of Church and
State, is highly concern'd : be sure then to offer up to God every day the
Morning and Evening Prayer ; offer it up in your Family at least, or rather
as far as your circumstances may possibly permit, offer it up in the Church,
especially if you live in a great Town, and say over the Litany every morn
ing during the whole Lent.3
As soon as King James' prosecution of the Seven Bishops had
failed, the Archbishop of Canterbury put out a document addressed
to his suffragans; one article of which is an exhortation to the
performance of the daily service.
V. That they perform the Daily Office publickly (with all Decency,
Affection, and Gravity) in all Market and other Great Towns, and even in
Villages, and less populous Places, bring people to Publick Prayers as
frequently as may be ; especially on such Days, and at such Times, as the
Rubric and Canons [direct] appointed on Holy-days, and their Eves, on
1 Symon Patrick, A discourse concerning Prayer, London, Chapman, 1705, p. 201.
2 See above, p. 81.
3 Thomas Ken, A Pastoral Letter . . . to his clergy concerning their behaviour
during Lent, published by Charles Brome, 1688, p. 2, reprinted in The Prose Works
of Thomas Ken, ed. by J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 476. For the daily
service at Little Easton, see p. 131.
DAIL Y SER VICE RECOMMENDED BY A UTHORITY. 83
Ember and Rogation Days^ on Wednesdays and Fridays in each Week, and
especially in Advent and Lent.1
This is among "Some Heads of Things to be more fully
insisted upon by the Bishops in their Addresses to the Clergy and
People of their respective Diocesses," and is dated July 27, 1688.
In Ireland also there were daily services. In 1691, a Bishop of
Cork, urging the practice of family prayer, adds :
Besides this, seeing there are daily publick prayers in two Churches of
the Town at least, what would it be for every sufficient Housekeeper, if
not to come often themselves, yet to send daily at least, one or two of the
Family, to pray there for all the rest ? 2
In 1695, Dr. Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, urging upon
his Clergy the " devout and decent Reading [of] the Holy Offices
of the Church " and " a good, distinct, forcible, yet easy, and un
forced Reading of every Prayer and Portion of the Holy Scriptures,"
adds that, if this be done, " It is indeed almost incredible, how
quite another Thing the daily Morning and Evening Prayers will
appear".3
The daily morning and evening prayers are taken for granted :
only they are to be decently performed.
In the year of his death, 1708, Dr. Beveridge's executor pub
lished a treatise by the bishop on the Great Necessity and Advantage
of Publick Prayer and Frequent Communion. In it he shows "the
many great Advantages which arise from the Daily frequenting the
Publick Prayers of the Church". The little book went through at
least nine editions in the eighteenth century, besides being trans
lated into Welsh.
In an official letter, Dr. Wake, when Bishop of Lincoln in 1711,
urges daily service, even in country parishes :
The Examples of several Excellent Parsons, who have done this with
good Success, and brought their People to frequent the daily Prayers of
the Church, shew what others might do ...
But whatever may be pretended against such a constant Usage of the
Daily Service in the Church, certain it is, that no Allowance is made for the
1The Archbishop of Canterbury's Instructions to the Clergy of the Church of
England, London, H. Jones, 1689. See also Walter Scott, A Collection of Scarce and
Valuable Tracts, sec. ed. London, 1813, vol. ix. p. 133. These are often called the
Somers tracts.
2 Pastoral Admonitions Directed by the Bishop of Cork to all under his charge,
Cork, Brent and Jones, 1691, p. ix.
8 Thomas Sprat, A Discourse made by the Lord Bishop of Rochester to the Clergy
of his Diocese. . . . 1695. In the Savoy, Nutt, 1710, pp. n, 13.
6 *
84 DAIL Y SER VICE RECOMMENDED BY A UTHORITY.
Omission of it upon Litany-Days^ Holy Days, Sundays, and their Eves ; and
it must therefore be your Duty to see that the Clergy within your Arch-
Deaconry do accordingly read it there, at least upon those Days.1
In the same way Dr. Potter, Bishop of Oxford, who like Dr.
Wake afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, speaks of the
daily service as a duty required of every clergyman. These are his
words :
In reading the daily Prayers of the Church, if any of us, instead of pro
nouncing them in the manner which the Nature of this Duty requires, that
is, gravely, seriously and reverently, should make it his constant practice to
hurry them over without any Concern or Attention, and like a Task of
which he desires to rid himself as soon as possible ; this, instead of ex
citing Devotion in those that hear him, would rather incline them to
Remissness and Coldness, to Irreligion and Atheism. . . .
My Brethren of the Clergy . . . are farther requir'd by one of the
Kubricks prefix'd before our excellent Liturgy, to say daily the Morning
and Evening Prayer either Privately or Openly?
It would be well if the advice of Dr. Potter could be remembered
in these days. Nothing discourages the attendance of the laity more
than the irreverent and grossly indecent manner in which the daily
divine service is now too often celebrated.
St. George's Chapel in Great Yarmouth was consecrated in 1715;
the Sunday after the preacher told the congregation that
Principally for your good daily Morning and Evening Prayers, are for
ever to be perform'd both here, as well as in the Mother Church?
For a parish priest William Law in 1726 sets the duty of daily
prayer on the level of the duty of visiting his parish.
Eusebius would read Prayers twice every Day in his Parish, he would
be often with the Poor and Sick, and spend much Time in charitable
Visits ; he would be wholly taken up in the Cure of Souls, but that he is
busy in studying the old Grammarians, and would fain reconcile some Dif
ferences amongst them, before he dies.4
There is a sermon advertised, but which 1 have not been able to
see in any library, with the following title :
1 W. Wake, Letter to the Clergy of Lincoln, covering a letter from the Archbishop
of Canterbury and Queen Anne, August, 1711, p. 4.
2 John Potter, Bishop of Oxford, Charge, July, 1716. London, Mortlock, 1716, pp.
15 and 18.
3 William Lyng, A Discourse of the Usefulness, Antiquity, and Dedications of
Churches, Cambridge University Press, 1716, p. 22.
4 William Law, A practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, ch. ix. ed. by J. J.
Trebeck, London, Spottiswoode, 1902, p. 226.
DAILY SERVICE RECOMMENDED BY AUTHORITY. 85
To join in Prayers, and to receive the Sacrament, in an established,
consecrated Place, Morning and Evening every Day, Christian Duties : a
Sermon at Market Dray ton, in Shropshire, Jan. 27, pr. 6d.1
I cannot think that we have here a recommendation of daily
communion, but only a recommendation of attendance on Morning
and Evening Prayers.
Dr. Henry Stebbing, who had the honour to be attacked by
Conyers Middleton, mentions the daily Service of Morning and
Evening prayer, in his Sermon on St. Mark's day, 1732, on the
Excellency of the Constitution of the Church of England consider 'a7, as
to the Frequency of its Worship.
Dr. Best in 1746 says it is accounted disreputable at Bath and
Tun bridge Wells not to attend the daily service : " a scandalous and
an offensive singularity".2
Dr. Hildesley, Bishop of Sodor and Man, left in his will a sum
of money for printing the Daily Service of the Common Prayer.3
He likewise continued the daily prayers in Sher burn's Hospital, as
they were under Dr. Chandler, Bishop of Durham.4
A broadsheet in the British Museum which the catalogue as
signs to the year 1760 urges attendance upon the daily service as a
means of promoting religion.
VII. Frequent publick Worship every Day in the Week, if your Busi
ness permit, and if you live in a Place where it is performed.5
The author of these Hints, reprinted in a third edition in 1771,
was the Reverend Thomas Richards. He was curate of St. Sepul
chre's, where the daily service was kept up from 1692 to 1746 at
least, and it was still going on in 1824. The following account of
his good works appeared at the time of his death.
Aged 82, the Rev. Thomas Richards, more than 30 years the indefati
gable and worthy curate of St. Sepulchre's London ; a man of Christian
principles, of approved integrity, of unwearied patience. He seemed uni
versally to be animated with zeal for his Divine Master, and to live with
1 Advertised in the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1731, vol. i. p. 272, amongst the
books published in June.
2 William Best, Essay upon the Service of the Church of England, considered as a
daily service, London, Oliver and Dod, 1746, p. 46. See also below, p. 100.
3 Weeden Butler, Memoires of Mark Hildesley, London, Nichols, 1799, p. 62.
4 ibid. p. 155 and [Geo. Allan,] Collections Relating Sherburn Hospital, 1773,
§ 23, p. 227. See also Robert Surtees, History . . . of Durham, London, 1816, vol. i.
P- 137-
5 Hints concerning the Means of promoting Religion in Ourselves or Others,
British Museum shelf mark : 816, m. 22. (56.)
86 DAILY SERVICE RECOMMENDED BY AUTHORITY.
no common share of heavenly- mindedness. Few clergymen pass this life
in so retired and humble a situation ; but, while he preserved the even
tenor of his way, in the laborious path of his duty, he never murmured at
his comparative low estate, or envied the superior fortunes of others. Con
tented with a little, he really dealt out his bread to the hungry, and scarcely
ever eat a meal but the sick and the needy partook with him.1
The need of frequent attendance on the divine service was put
before his clergy by Dr. Butler on his translation to Durham in
1751. Divine service was to be celebrated as often as a congrega
tion could be got to attend it.
But if these appendages of the divine service are to be regarded,
doubtless the divine service itself is more to be regarded ; and the con
scientious attendance upon it ought often to be inculcated upon the people,
as a plain precept of the gospel, as the means of grace, and what has
peculiar promises annexed to it. ... For this reason besides others, the
service of the church ought to be celebrated as often as you can have a
congregation to attend it.
But since the body of the people, especially in country places, cannot
be brought to attend it oftener than one day in a week ; and since this is
in no sort enough to keep up in them a due sense of religion ; it were greatly
to be wished they could be persuaded to any thing which might in some
measure, supply the want of more frequent public devotions, or serve the
like purposes. Family prayers, regularly kept up in every house, would
have a great and good effect.2
Though the eighteenth century be now far advanced, yet in a
charge published in the year before his death, Dr. George Home,
Bishop of Norwich, urged upon the clergy the duty of daily service
as required by the canons. He complains that daily service had
much fallen off.
To assist us in the great duties of prayer and meditation, books of
devotion have their use ; but to us of the clergy, the Liturgy of our Church
is the best companion, and the daily use of it in our churches, or families,
is required by the Canons. It cannot be denied, that from various reasons
prevailing amongst us, we are much fallen off, of late years, from the
practice of weekly [?week day] prayers in our churches. Wherever
this hath been neglected, we should exhort the people to the revival of it,
if circumstances will possibly permit ; and alarm them against a mistake,
to which they are all exposed, from a fanatical prejudice of baneful influence,
namely, that they come to church only to hear preaching ; and hence they
are indifferent, even on a Sunday, to the prayers of the church, unless
there is a sermon. But if sermons have not already taught them, that they
1 Gentleman's Magazine, for 1798, vol. Ixviii. part i. p. 262.
2 Joseph Butler, A charge delivered to the Clergy . . . of Durham, 1751, in Works,
ed. by W. E. Gladstone, Oxford, 1896, vol. ii. p. 409.
DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. 87
are to be saved by the life and fire of devotion in their own hearts, little is
to be expected from all the sermons they will hear in time to come.
Devotion is a flame,' which, like other flame, is given to spread. If a
clergyman appears to be zealous in the duty of public prayer, the people
will be thereby excited to attend him. But if he appears to be indifferent,
they will continue to be so ; and though their indevotion will be no excuse
for his, his will always be assumed as an excuse for theirs.1
Also at the beginning of the nineteenth century when it might
have been thought that Church tone was at its lowest, a bishop,
Sir George Pretyman Tomline, speaks of the daily service : " Our
Church, in the beginning of its daily service".2 And a writer in
the Quarterly Review, noticing the book, points out " a very re
markable want of allusion, in the daily services, to the corruption
of man by the fall of Adam".3 The expression implies that the
service is to be daily and it is acknowledged as such ; but an ad
mission of the possibility of daily service as a duty would hardly
have been allowed in certain quarters after 1833. It would have
smacked of Tractarianism.
In 1815, a somewhat Low Church periodical, the Christian
Guardian, speaks of the daily service as if it were an acknowledged
practice. Discussing morning and evening services, the writer says
let us now proceed to consider the manner in which this daily sacrifice
of praise and thanksgiving is directed to be offered in the Church of
England.4
In 1820 there appeared a learned work in two volumes, by the
Reverend Thomas Pruen, with the title : An Illustration of the
Liturgy of the Church of England as to its daily service. It was
published by subscription in London.
Thus we approach the end of our period.
As OFFERED BY THE CLERGY.
By far the best information that we have under this heading is
given us by the time tables for the churches in the cities of London
and Westminster that were published, not infrequently, between
the years 1683 and 1753. The last that I have seen in our period
1 George [Home], A charge intended to have been delivered to the clergy of Nor
wich, Norwich, Yarington and Bacon, 1791, p. 38.
2 George Pretyman Tomline, A Refutation of Calvinism, London, 1811, ch. iii.
P- 145-
3 Quarterly Review, 1811, October, p. 197.
4 The Christian Guardian, London, Gosnell, 1815, vol. vii. p. 15.
88 DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY.
was published in 1824, but the numbers have then fallen very low.
For the churches in the country we have far less information : for
them I have not come across anything like the timetables of services
that we have for seventy years in the capital.
In the country, the records are very scanty, especially of small
parishes. There is one, Bedell, where there was daily prayer in
1 68 1.1 In Ken's first parish, Little Easton in Essex, it has been
already said that he established daily morning and evening prayer.2
In the city of London in 1682 there were two churches at least
with daily service, St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Christopher.3 The
note that gives us this information is, it may be presumed, not ex
haustive; for in the following year the second edition of the
pamphlet in which the note is contained shows a table of some
twenty churches and chapels with daily service. Even this is not
complete, for it does not give the daily service at St. Dunstan's
Fleet Street attended by Mr. Pepys in i6644 and still going on
1692, and in the days of Clarissa Harlowe.
In this second edition St. Paul's is not mentioned, as it was re
building : but there were three services every day at the King's
Chapel, the Duke's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, and Ely House
at 6, 10, and 4. Also at the Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's
Inn at 8 and 4 ; and at the Charterhouse at 1 1 and 4. But these
are all more or less foundations. The number of Parish Churches
with service twice a day is but seven ; and five have service once a
day only.
The services in 1683 were at various times: From 6 to 1 1 in
the morning and from 3 to 6 in the afternoon. In 1688, in a small
quarto tract, there is a greater choice of times given for services,
especially at night, thus :
I hope there are but few, but will find time at VI. VII. or VIII. in the
Morning before business breaks in upon them, or at IX. X. or at XI. when
business is over ; And for the Afternoon, either at III. IV. V. VI. VII.
VIII. or IX. a Clock.5
1 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Soc. 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 80.
2 See above, p. 82.
3 [T. Seymour,] Advice to the Readers of the Common Prayer and to the people . . .
by a well-meaning (though unlearned) Layick of the Church of England, London,
Randal Taylor, 1682, on verso of Preface.
4 See above, p. 78.
5 A letter of Advice to all the Members of the Church of England to come to the
Divine Service Morning and Evening every day, London, S. Keble, 1688, p. 5.
DAIL Y SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. 89
Much the same desire to suit all classes is shown by a writer in
1708 who attempts to vindicate London from the charge of being a
lewd and vicious place : rather he would claim that it is a Religious
well-governed City :
few of the 100 Churches contained in this City, as aforesaid (unless where
they stand very thick, as in the Heart of the City) but where there is Divine
Service once, twice, or more in a Day, and these at different Hours, some
in the Hours of Business, which seem to be intended for Masters, and
those that have Estates ; and others in the Evening when Shops are shut,
or very early in the Morning, most proper for Servants of all sorts, and
labouring Persons.1
To return to the number of churches with daily prayer : in 1687
there are more than in 1683 : there are now ten Cathedral or
Collegiate Churches, Chapels royal, and other foundations as we may
call them, with daily service, and 28 parish churches and chapels
with daily service, most of them twice daily.2 It may be suspected
that this increase is due to a more complete enumeration.
In 1692 there are at least forty-seven places where the daily
service is celebrated.3
In 1 708 there can be counted up thirty-six churches and chapels,
not including Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, or the chapels royal,
where there are daily services.4
A bookseller's catalogue announces an edition of Rules for our
more devout Behaviour, etc., published in 1709, and the writer tells
us that he counts up sixty London churches in which there is daily
service. I have not myself seen this edition.
In 1714 there were in London and Westminster 72 churches
and chapels with daily service,5 while in 1728 there are but 57 parish
churches and chapels in London and Westminster with daily
service,6 and four years later, in 1732, there can only be found 44
churches with daily service. Seeing that in 1728 and again in
1746 we have much the same figures, 57 in the one, and 58 in the
other, it is possible that in 1732 a full tale of the churches was not
1 A new mew of London, London, 1708, vol. i. Introduction, p. xxxvii.
2 Rules for our more devout behaviour, etc., London, S. Keble, second edition,
1687.
3 Single sheet folio in the British Museum, the shelf mark is : 491. k. 4 (n).
4 A new view of London, in two volumes, London, 1708.
5 James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714.
6 Rules for our more devout behaviour, etc., London, Joseph Hazard, fourteenth
edition, 1728.
90 DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY.
given in,1 and the hypothesis of violent fluctuation need not be re
sorted to without further evidence.
^In 1746 there were in the Bills of Mortality 58 churches and
chapels with daily service. This must be looked upon as a decided
falling off in the numbers as compared with those of 1714 ; for new
churches had been built and, though in them daily service was begun
and kept up, yet the services in the older establishments must have
been decreasing. A large number, however, still keep the festivals,
and every week the station days, that is, Wednesday and Friday.2
They have often evening as well as morning prayer on the
Wednesday and Friday, and evening prayer on Saturday, the eve
of Sunday.
At Bloomsbury Chapel, they had in 1722, prayers, morning and
evening, every day at n and 4.3
At Duke Street Chapel by Story's Gate they had morning and
evening prayer also daily, at 1 1 and 4.*
The following passage occurs in editions of Stow's Survey :
Constant Publick Prayers^ and Lectures every Day. [in m.] I might
subjoin here the great Advantages those that live in the City have for their
publick Devotions. For there be set up in the Churches the Use of Publick
Prayers said, not only every Day, but almost every Hour of the Day, at one
Church or other. That so, if a Man's occasions do obstruct his going to
Church, to pay Almighty God his Devotions at one Hour, he may at his
greater Leisure, do it at another.5
In 1824 the daily services had fallen almost as low as they
could without being extinct. Only nine parish churches in London
and Westminster had preserved them. But cut short as they were
they had not entirely disappeared. Yet judging from the extra
ordinary outcry made when the early Tractarians attempted to re
vive the practice of daily prayer, it might be thought that such
devotions were unknown in the Church of England. There are
1 New Remarks of London, collected by the Company of Parish Clerks, London,
Midwinter, 1732. The Clerk of St. Margaret's Westminster denied all knowledge of
the paragraphs assigned to him in this collection. (J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Re-
divivum, London, 1807, vol. iv. p. 121.)
2 William Best, An Essay upon the Service of the Church of England considered as
a daily service, London, 1746. See Appendix.
3 Supplement to the Review of London, London, Roberts, 1722, p. 33.
4 ibid. p. 34.
5 John Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. John Strype,
London, 1720, Vol. II. book v. p. 33, also sixth edition, London, Innys, etc., 1755, Vol.
II. book v. ch. iii. p. 148, where the same statements are repeated ; whether after fresh
verification or merely by copying I do not know.
DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. 91
doubtless many who would be ready to believe that all trace of
daily service had disappeared. But the time table of the year 1824
shows that it is not so. At St. James' Piccadilly and St. Martin's
in the Fields there were three services every week day at 7, Uj 6,
continued from the eighteenth century ; at St. Martin's the first
service in the winter months was at 8. This latter point gives a
touch of reality to the statement. At St. George's Hanover
Square, St. James' Clerkenwell, St. Giles' in the Fields, and St.
Dunstan's Stepney there were prayers daily at 1 1 .
At St. Andrew's Holborn there were every week day prayers at a
quarter past 1 1 and a quarter past 3. At St. Sepulchre's prayers
every morning at 7 o'clock and at 3 o'clock in the afternoon ; while
on Wednesdays, Fridays and holidays there were also prayers at 1 1.
In a good number of churches where the service was not daily
there were prayers on Wednesdays, Fridays, and holidays, in the
morning, only. These were some twenty-two in number. I have
assumed that whenever there is no special mention of week day ser
vices in 1824 no such services existed, and this I fear was the case in
the majority of churches.
One curious endowment existed at St. Anthony or St. Antholin
Watling Street, where there were six lectures preached, one for every
evening at seven o'clock but Saturday ; with the exception of one week
in the year when divine service was performed at seven in the morning.
At this church the worshipful company of Skinners attended divine
service on Corpus Christi day. This word may be noted, for the
day does not appear in the Calendar of the Church of England ;
and another unusual entry in the same year of a sermon on All
Souls' day is at St. Margaret's Westminster.
The endowment at St. Mary le Bow for a celebration of the
Lord's supper every Saint's day made in 1755 and spoken of above
seems to have been diverted in 1824 to the mere reading of Prayers
" at 8 o'clock in the morning on Saints' days ".
Thus much for the services of 1824.
We have records of three daily services at St. Clement Danes
in 1746, and some of these may have been continued in 1779 : for
on a Sunday evening, October loth, Dr. Johnson intended to go to
evening prayers ; but owing to a little gout in his toe, he said " I
shan't go to prayers to-night ; I shall go to-morrow ; whenever I
miss church on a Sunday, I resolve to go another day. But I do
not always do it,"
92 DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY.
If the London churches had all been shut from Sunday to Sun
day, Dr. Johnson would not have said this.
Sometimes, as in Dr. Johnson's case spoken of above, we have
incidental notice of the existence of daily service. For example,
on June 14, 1729 it is announced in the papers that St. Swithun's
church was robbed on Monday night, the thieves having hid them
selves after prayers.1 St. Swithun's London Stone is among the
churches given in the time tables as having daily evening service ;
the newspaper paragraph confirms what is given in the time tables.
Even when exiled to the tropics the chaplains of the East India
Company tried to keep up the rule they had learnt at home. In
1718 they had prayers twice daily, at 8 and 4.2
At Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1769 there were at All Saints
" prayers every day, at ten o'clock in the morning, and four in the
afternoon".3 At St. Nicholas there were also "prayers twice a
day".4
At Southampton we are told that
It was the practice of the town clergy to keep up a daily service at
Holy Rood, and in September, 1661,* they were begged to revive that
ancient and laudable custom ; a practice broken through probably before
1752, since Taunton's bequest that year for the same purpose was confined
to the Vicar of Holy Rood, or on his failing in the duty the bequest was
to go to St. Lawrence, and on failure there to return to Holy Rood, and so
from one to the other for ever. In 1781 Holy Rood is described as the
fashionable church of the town, with service twice a day.** 5
* Town Journ. (Corp. MSS.). ** Ford, Guide (1781).
I do not quite follow the reasoning that the practice had been
broken through because the endowment was to leave the church if
the daily service were discontinued. It rather suggests the desire
for the keeping up of a practice by this threat of loss if discontinued.
It may be gathered from the last paragraph of the extract printed
below 6 that the daily service at Holy Rood was continued down to
1849.
By the help of the Bath Guides which we have from 1753 to
1 British Journal or the Censor, Saturday, June 14, 1729.
2 Henry Barry Hyde, Parochial Annals of Bengal, Calcutta, 1901, p. 76.
3 John Wallis, Natural History . . . of Northumberland, London, Strahan, 1769,
vol. ii. p. 230.
4 ibid. p. 224.
5 Victoria History of the Counties of England : Hampshire and the Isle of Wight,
London, Constable, 1908, vol. iii. p. 527.
6 See extract below, p, 94, from Christian Remembrancer, 1849, vol. xvii. p. 337.
DAILY SERVICE AS OFFERED BY THE CLERGY. 93
beyond our period, it is possible to follow the custom of daily ser
vice at Bath for some eighty years. In 1753 it is said that at the
Abbey Church there were prayers every day, at eleven in the fore
noon ahid at four in the afternoon. Also at St. Mary's Chapel in
Queen's Square divine service was twice every day, at eleven and
four. At St. James' they only had prayers on Wednesdays and
Fridays, at eleven and four.1
These services continue much the same, except those at St.
James' which was rebuilding, until 1768, when it is added that at
St. John's Hospital they have service twice a day together with
those at the Abbey and St. Mary's.2 These go on till 1784, when
the evening service in the Abbey would seem to have been given
up. In 1786 the daily service at St. Mary's has fallen to one only
at eleven in the morning, but in 1788 the Abbey Church has again
services at 1 1 and 4 : St. Mary's only once at 1 1 , but at St. John's
twice.
After St. James' Church was rebuilt they had service on Wed
nesdays and Fridays, in the morning, not in the afternoon ; on
Saturdays in the afternoon.
In 1791, at the Abbey Church they have service twice a day, at
II and 4: so in 1801, 1811, and 1813. St. Mary's continues with
one service only in the forenoon, up to 1823. At the Abbey
Church in 1834, there are prayers daily at eleven.
At Manchester, besides the daily services of the collegiate or Old
Church, now the cathedral church, they had before 1834 service
twice daily at St. Anne's Church, consecrated in 1712 :
prayers are read on all other days, [besides Sunday] throughout the year,
viz. at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and at six in the evening. To sup
port this extra duty, two curates have generally been attached to the church.3
It would thus seem that even at the end of our period the daily
service was never quite extinct in parish churches. The paragraph
which follows gives some further instances of its maintenance, and
there can be little doubt that the list now in our hands is not ex
haustive.
In the eighteenth, [century, daily prayer] it gradually died out of our
towns, though in some instances, as at Boston and Grantham in Lincoln -
1 Bath and Bristol Guide, Bath, Thomas Boddeley, 1753, p. 4.
2 New Bath Guide, C. Pope, about 1768, 5th ed. The later dates are those of the
Bath Guide of the year given.
3 [S. Hibbert,] History of the Foundations of Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834,
vol. ii. p. 51, note.
94 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE.
shire, it lingered on till the commencement of the present [nineteenth] cen
tury. In the latter town it has never been given up. Dr. Wells endowed
his church at Cotesbach with a sum for the perpetual recitation of daily
morning prayers. The piety of a townsman did the same thing for Holy-
rood at Southampton, even in that dark age. In both cases the practice is
maintained.1
As ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE.
Here we have to rely upon the incidental mention of attendance
at daily prayer in the miscellaneous writings of the time. From
the nature of things it cannot be looked for that such should be
found very often ; yet in the first half of the eighteenth century, it
must be owned that the number of times in which one may find
daily prayer spoken of as attended by the people, much exceeds what
one may have thought beforehand it would be.
At Southampton there is evidence that the civic authorities, as
already mentioned, called upon the town clergy to resume the daily
service the year after the return of the King ; that is in September
1 66 1. The practice continued at least as late as 1 78 1,2 and even down
to I849.8
When Mrs. Godolphin is in Paris in 1675 she attends public
prayers twice a day, it must be supposed in the Embassy chapel.4
At the English Court " Were it never soe dark, wett or uncomfortable
weather, dureing the severity of winter, she would rarely omit being
at the Chappell att 7 a'clock prayers".5
It is recorded of Dr. Thomas Willis, a distinguished physician,
who began to practice in London in 1666, and who died in 1675,
that
As he rose early in the morning, that he might be present at divine
service, which he constantly frequented before he visited his patients, he
procured prayers to be read out of the accustomed times while he lived,
and at his death settled a stipend of 2o/. per annum to continue them.6
1 Christian Remembrancer ', 1849, vol. xvii. p. 337. Article on Daily prayers, which
I am inclined to attribute to the pen of Dr. Neale. There is on p. 344 a letter from
Wake describing four services a day at Lambeth.
2 Victoria History of the Counties of England : Hampshire and the Isle of Wight,
London, Constable, 1908, vol. iii. p. 527. The reference given for the resumption after
the Restoration is : Town Journ. (Corp. MSS). See above, p. 92.
3 See immediately above.
4 The life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, 1888, p. 123.
5 ibid. p. 166.
6 Alex. Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary, London, 1817, vol. xxxii. p.
140 under Thomas Willis.
DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 95
This benefaction is spoken of in 1714 and prayers were then
continued at 6 in the morning,1 and they are also spoken of as in
existence in 1824.2
Amongst the Rawlinson papers of the Bodleian Library is a
long letter from a student in the Inns of Court unable to find a
rubrical service either on Sundays or week days, and he complains
that the service ordered to be daily in every church is not fully or
perfectly read.3 This gives some evidence of a desire among the
laity to attend the daily service, which should be read without
mutilation or alteration.
In 1704 the gentlemen of Clifford's Inn are commended for
their constant attendance on the prayers of the Church at St. Dun-
stan's in the West.4
Ken when he was parson at Little Easton in Essex seems to
have begun or continued the daily service as pointed out above :
for in his funeral sermon of Lady Maynard he says of her :
Besides her own private prayers, she morning and evening offered up
to God the public offices, and when she was not able to go to the house
of prayer, she had it read to her in her chamber.5
It seems to follow from this that Ken had daily morning and
evening prayer in the parish church of Little Easton.
A writer, complaining of a superfluity of sermons in England,
remarks of the frequent services
especially in great Cities, where the Bells never lie still all the Week long,
from Six a'clock in the morning, till Five at night
so as to give the parson no time for preparation of sermons, which
become mere " prating ".6
Sir George Wheler, a Prebendary of Durham, speaking of the way
in which a Christian Nobleman's household should order its affairs,
says that such should have daily offices.
1 James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714, p. 152.
z London Parishes, London, Weed and Jeffery, 1824, p. 151.
3 See below, Appendix to this Chapter.
4 A letter of advice to all the members of the Church of England to come to the
Divine Service every day, London, Keble, 1704, reprinted by Joseph Masters, 1852,
P. 5-
5 Thomas Ken, Sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Hon. The Lady
Margaret Mainard, at Little Easton, in Essex, June 30, 1682, in The Prose Works of
Thomas Ken, ed. by J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 131.
6 Speculum Crape-Gownorum, Lond[o]n, 1682, p. 16. Crape was the name of the
stuff of which the gown of the clergyman was often made.
96 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE.
Persons of this first Magnitude usually do, and all should, like Mtcah,
keep a Divine to be a Spiritual Father and Priest to his Family : who, as
he is oblig'd to say daily Morning and Evening Prayers Privately or Pub-
lickly, according to the Rule of his Common- Prayer Book; So should
there be a decent Chappel in the House, set apart to perform this Office
in : ... If this were fixt to, or near Six in the Morning, at Mid-day,
[daily Communion service] and after Six at Night, it would effect this most
conveniently.1
Of a lady at Manchester in 1705 or thereabouts, it is said
incidentally that the hour of visiting was then two ; but the visits
were all paid in time to allow her to attend prayers at four in the
Old Church, which in the nineteenth century was refounded as
the cathedral.2
It was hardly to be looked for that Mrs. Centlivre should bear
testimony to Church practices. Her evidence immediately follow
ing is indirect, but not therefore the less trustworthy.
CONST. Tis near Six — I have a mind to see \i Belinda comes to Church
this Morning.
Lov. She seldom fails.
and again :
there's a person at hand that may prevent your Six o'Clock Prayers.3
At St. James' Westminster, they had daily service in 1687, at
1 1 and 4, only twice a day ; but the Rector taking leave of his
parish in 1708 on becoming Bishop of Norwich4 can congratulate
the parish on four daily services :
The numerous and orderly Assemblies . . . the good Congregations
there are at all the four Courses of the Daily Prayers ; . . . The calling
for more Opportunities of Worship, which has added a Course to the Daily
Service in one part of the Parish,* and occasioned the opening of a New
Chapel in another.**
* King street Chapel. ** Barwick Street.
Sir John Morden, Baronet, the founder of Morden College for
decayed Merchants, directs in his will executed before 1708
That the Chapel in the said College be Consecrated : And that there
be a sober, devout, and discreet Person, in Holy Orders, appointed to be
1 [George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery, 1698, p. 154.
2J. Aikin, A Description of the Country . . . round Manchester, London, Stock-
dale, 1795, p. 186.
3 Mrs. Centlivre, The man's bewitch'd, Act I. The Basset Table, Act I. from Works,
London, 1761, vol. i. p. 209, and vol. iii. p. 86.
4 Charles [Trimnell], A sermon preached at . . . St. James Westminster . . . at
his taking his Leave of the said Parish, London, Chapman, 1709, p. 25.
DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 97
Chaplain to the College, to read Divine Service there, according to the
present Liturgy of the Church of England, as now by Law established,
Twice every day, Morning and Evening.
Also he wills
that all the Merchants do constantly go to Chapel and Divine Service
twice every Day without fail, if they are able.1
There is just the same idea in the Whig, Sir Andrew
Freeport, who, on withdrawing from the world, announces his in
tention of building an Almshouse for twelve poor Husbandmen :
It will be a great pleasure to me to say my Prayers twice a day with
Men of my own Years, who all of them, as well as my self, may have their
Thoughts taken up how they shall die, rather than how they shall live.2
Swift attacks a parson for " making the bowling-green his daily
residence, instead of his church, where his curate reads prayers
every day ".3
Daily morning and evening service was still going on in 1710-
1 1 at St. Paul's Covent Garden, for the Sexton is made to complain
of the disappearance of the fashionable world that patronised in
stead a puppet show in the Piazza. He says, plaintively,
There now appear among us none but a few ordinary People, who
come to Church only to say their Prayers.4
The Spectator speaks of a man with a great fortune, the over
plus of which he gives away and he leads a most retired and austere
life, having " no one necessary Attention to any thing but the Bell
which calls to Prayers twice a day".5
The Guardian gives this description of the daily service :
the other Morning I happened to rise earlier than ordinary, and thought
I could not pass my Time better than to go upon the Admonition of the
Morning Bell to the Church Prayers at six of the Clock. I was there the
first of any in the Congregation . . . there was none at the Confession
but a Sett of poor Scrubs of us, who could Sin only in our Wills, whose
Persons could be no Temptation to one another . . . when we poor Souls
had presented our selves with a Contrition suitable to our Worthlessness,
some pretty young Ladies in Mobbs, popped in here and there about the
Church, clattering the Pew Dour after them. . . . For the sake of these
1 John Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. John Strype,
London, 1720, Book I. p. 221.
2 Spectator , No. 549, Saturday, November 29, 1712.
3 J. Swift, The Tatler, No. 71, Thursday, Sept. 22, 1709, in Works, ed. W. Scott,
Edinburgh, 1814, vol. ix. p. 230.
4 Spectator, No. 14, March 16, 1710-11.
5 ibid. No. 264, Wednesday, January 2, 1711-12.
7
98 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE.
it is worth while, that the Church keeps up such early Mattins throughout
the Cities of London and Westminster.^
In 1713 Ambrose Bonwicke as soon as he arrives in London
goes to church that same night, and " according to his constant
practice, was twice a day at church while he continued in town ".2
In 1/15 there was executed a deed by which the Squire of Ham
assigned the great tithes to the Vicar in consideration that the ser
vice should be said daily in the church ; and if omitted, a fine not
exceeding sixpence was to be exacted.3 The squire had a very
right sense of the purpose of endowments : to wit, to maintain the
public service of God in a parish.
In the same year another Squire showed his piety.
William Coke (1679-1718) who built the present church, was a well-
known Derbyshire squire, famous for his pack of harriers, and a zealous
Churchman of his days. He always attended morning prayers, read by
the rector of Trusley, before hunting, as well as evensong after his
return.4
The Tory foxhunter, coming to London, is pleased to find " that
Clergymen, instead of being affronted, had generally the Wall given
them ; and that he had heard the Bells ring to Prayers from Morning
to Night in some part of the Town or another ".5 And Sir Roger
de Coverley bids the Spectator " observe how thick the City was set
with Churches, and that there was scarce a single Steeple on this
side Temple-Bar. A most Heathenish Sight ! says Sir Roger :
There is no Religion at this End of the Town." 6
It was evidently thought a duty to attend the daily service ; for
Addison speaks thus of Queen Caroline, the wife of King George
the Second, that as Princess of Wales
She is constant in her Attendance on the daily Offices of our Church,
and by her serious and devout Comportment on these solemn occasions,
gives an Example that is very often too much wanted in Courts.7
Others have reported differently of the conduct.
1 Guardian, No. 65, Tuesday, May 26, 1713.
zLife of Ambrose Bonwicke, by his father, ed. by J. E. B. Mayor; Deighton
Bell, 1870, p. 66.
3 Ecclesiologist, 1861, vol. xxii. p. 300.
4 J. Charles Cox, Athenaum, 1907, Sept. 28, p. 373.
5 Jos. Addison, Freeholder^ No. 47, June i, 1717, London, Tonson and Draper,
I75i, P- 274.
6 Spectator, No. 383, Tuesday, May 20, 1712. Sir Roger's statement will be con
firmed by a glance at Sayer's View of London, 1788.
7 J. Addison, Freeholder, No. 21, Friday, March 2, 1715.
DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 99
At a fashionable watering-place like Tunbridge Wells, the daily
service was not forgotten. We read :
After the Appearance is over at the Wells, (where the Ladies are all
undress'd) and at the Chapel, the Company go home.1
Fielding in the Temple Beau, first acted in 1729, alludes to Daily
service.
LADY LUCY. That you rail at the diversions of the town . . . that
you went to church, twice a day, a whole year and a half, because — you
was in love with the parson ; ha, ha, ha ! 2
And again in the Modern Husband, acted in 1731, a fashionable
lady protests that
if a husband were to insist upon my never missing any one diversion this
town affords, I believe in my conscience I should go twice a day to church
to avoid them.3
In Clarissa Harlowe, a reforming rake is told : " It is not every
girl of fortune and family that will go to prayers with thee once or
twice a day ".4 The heroine speaks of the daily prayers in several
churches : St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street at 7 in the morn
ing ; Lincoln's Inn Chapel at eleven and five ; and Covent Garden
Church at six,5 and she wishes to attend them.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu mocking the devotional practices
of her time and the backbiting which accompanied them writes :
Sermons I sought, and with a mien severe
Censur'd my neighbours, and said daily pray'r.6
In 1742 Fielding ridicules
those pure and sanctified virgins, who, after a life innocently spent in the
gaieties of the town, begin about fifty to attend twice per diem at the polite
churches and chapels.7
We may have seen something like this in the nineteenth century.
At Bath there seems to have been some attendance of the
1 [Daniel Defoe,] A tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, London, Strahan,
1724, vol. i. Letter ii. p. 56. The third edition has " in Deshabille " instead of " un
dressed " (p. 179).
2 Henry Fielding, T he Temple Beau, act i, sc. i. Works, ed. Murphy and Browne,
London, Bickers, 1871, vol. i. p. 186.
3 The modern Husband, act v. sc. 10. ibid. vol. ii. p. 251.
4 S. Richardson, Clarissa Harlowe, Tauchnitz, vol. iv. p. 402, Letter civ.
5 ibid. p. 24, Letter vii. and p. 152, Letter Ixv.
6 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Six Town Eclogues, London, Cooper, 1747, p. 6,
for Monday.
7 Henry Fielding, History of . . . Joseph Andrews, Book I. ch. viii. in Works, ed.
Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. v. p. 45.
7*
ioo DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE.
fashionable company at the daily service. It is part of the pleading
of the Rev. John Jackson, who does not seem to have been accounted
quite orthodox, that during his stay at Bath " he attended constantly
the Prayers of the Church twice a day".1 Further it is said :
Tis also the Fashion of the place for the Company to go every Day
pretty constantly to hear Divine Service at the great Church, and at St.
Mary's Chapel in Queers-square^ where are Prayers twice a day.2
A letter from Bath, dated May 9, 1747 speaks of the daily
service at St. Mary's :
Scarce had the Bell of St. Marys chapel done ringing for morning prayers
on Thursday last before a smoak &c.3
Goldsmith in his life of Nash, the King of Bath, alludes to the
daily service, but not as if everybody were expected to attend
church every day. "When noon approaches, and church (if any
please to go there) is done " ; and later in the day : " After dinner is
over, and evening prayers ended".4
But in a Bath Guide, which cannot be earlier than 1766, are
some verses of no great merit, which, however, describe the daily
life of Bath.
Arise betime, to Pump repair,
First take the Water, then the Air ;
* * *
Frequent the Church in decent Dress,
There offer up religious Vows ;
Yourself to none but GOD address ;
Avoiding foppish Forms and Bows.
It will be seen that the bows and courtesies which the Spectator
disapproved of5 still continued. After church, exercise ; then dinner,
followed by "chearful Chat and little Thought " or even by a hand
at Whist and Ombre. Then
The Mind unbent, your Thoughts prepare
To bear a Part in Ev'ning Pray'r :
That Duty done, a Draught repeat ;
Concoction help with liquid Heat.6
1 A narrative of the case of the Reverend Mr. Jackson being refused the Sacrament
of the Lord's Supper at Bath, London, J. Noon, 1736, p. 3.
2 [Daniel Defoe,] A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, third edition,
London, 1742, vol. ii. p. 255. This passage is not in the edition of 1724.
3 Manchester Magazine, May 19, 1747.
4 Oliver Goldsmith, Life of Richard Nash, in the Globe edition of Miscellaneous
Works, Macmillan, 1869, p. 525.
5 See below, p. 172.
6 The New Bath Guide, Bath, Pope, fifth edition, p. 15.
DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 101
At Exeter the traveller notes that
Tis no uncommon Thing to see 500 People here in a Morning, which
is at least five times as many as usually attend at St. Paul's^ or any other
Six o'clock Chapel I was ever at : And 'tis commendable, that the Reader
doth not here curtail the Morning Service, by leaving out any Part there
of, as in other places they do.1
The Student of the Inns of Court complains to Dr. Denis Gran-
ville of grievous mutilation.2 In the text of A Tour the writer remarks
on the grave and pious behaviour of the congregation at Exeter.
After the middle of the century going to church every day con
tinues. A journalist speaks of: " The fine lady of fashion . . .
who attends the sermon every Sunday, and prayers every week-day ".3
So with the reverse of a fashionable lady ; the inhabitants of a
workhouse are said to have a handsome Chapel
where they go to Prayers twice a Day, at Seven in the Morning and Seven
in the Evening. On Sundays they all go to St. Helen's, where they have
Seats.4
This is the London workhouse, near Bishopsgate Street. In
1714 the hours were the same.5
Of the Temple it is said that
Besides the master, there is a reader, who reads divine service twice
a day, at eight o'clock in the morning, and at four in the afternoon.6
In 1762 the time of the Cock Lane ghost,
the officiating clerk of St. Sepulchre's, observing one morning at early
prayers, a genteel couple standing in the aisle,7 &c.
William Cowper writing to Lady Hesketh on Sept. 14, 1765
says of a clergyman, Mr. Nicholson :
He reads prayers here twice a day, all the year round ; and travels on
foot to serve two churches every Sunday through the year.8
and the poet attends the daily service himself. Speaking of his
every-day mode of life he says :
1 [Daniel Defoe,] A tour thro" the Whole Island of Great Britain, third edition,
London, 1742, vol. i. p. 316 note. This edition is said to be edited by Samuel Richardson.
The note does not occur in the edition of 1724, but it is in the seventh edition of 1769.
2 See Appendix to this Chapter, p. 112.
3 The World, No. 184, July 8, 1756.
4 [Daniel Defoe,] A tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, London, 1753,
fifth ed. vol. ii. p. 112.
5 James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Taylor, 1714, p. 140.
6 London and its environs described, London, Dodsley, 1761, vol. vi. p. 113.
7 Annual Register, 1762, Chronicle, Sept. p. 142.
8 W. Benham, Letters of William Cowper, London, Macmillan, 1884, p. 9.
102 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE.
at eleven we attend divine service, which is performed here twice every
day.1
Of the Duke of Newcastle, the minister in the middle of the
eighteenth century who, while corrupting others, was incorruptible
himself, and died .£300,000 poorer than when he began official life,
it is said :
He was affable and religious, having divine service constantly per
formed twice a day in his family, both in town and country, and at stated
times the sacrament was administered, at which he constantly communi
cated.2
Some few years before, there died Gilbert West, one of the
minor poets, whose life was written by Dr. Johnson, and of whom
he says :
Perhaps it may not be without effect to tell, that he read the prayers
of the public liturgy every morning to his family, and that on Sunday
evening he called his servants into the parlour, and read to them first a
sermon and then prayers. Crashaw is now not the only maker of verses
to whom may be given the two venerable names of Poet and Saint . . .
as infidels do not want malignity, they revenged the disappointment by
calling him a Methodist.8
One who meant seriously to try and do his duty was at that
time often vilified as a Methodist. So again the chaplain in a
country house remarks :
I had nothing to do but to say grace at meals ; for the Squire was no
Methodist^ and hated \hepomp of daily prayers in the family.4
This excerpt brings out two points : one, that in a squire's family
it was the custom to say the daily prayers ; the other, the use of
the word methodist, an illustration of what has been said before.
Nothing is so useful as the calling of names. Dr. Home found it so
at Oxford :
If he mentions the assistance and direction of the Holy Spirit, with the
necessity of prayer, mortification, and taking up the cross — "O, he is a
Methodist ! " If he talks of the divine right of episcopacy, and the power of
the keys, with a word concerning the danger of schism — " Just going over
to Popery ! " 5
1 W. Benham, Letters of William Cowper, London, Macmillan, 1884, p. 16.
2 Annual Register, 1768, Nov. 17, Chronicle, p. 187.
3 Samuel Johnson, Life of Gilbert West, in Works, Edinburgh, 1806, vol. xiii. p.
258.
4 The Student or the Oxford Monthly Miscellany, 1751, vol. ii. p. 182.
5 George Home, An Apology to certain Gentlemen in the University of Oxford, in
Works, ed. by William Jones, London, Rivington, 1818, vol. iv. p. 167.
DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 103
Towards the end of the century, in 1780, Dr. Johnson wrote a
letter to a young clergyman who asked for advice against falling into
improprieties in the daily service.1 This helps the opinion that daily
service was no extraordinary thing at that time ; the parish which
the young clergy man 'served seems to have been barbarous, and thus
without the likelihood of a congregation to keep up the services.
Early service went on every day in the Royal Chapel at Windsor
in 1785 and 1786. Mrs. Delany writes as follows:
Sept. 20, 1785. I have been three times at the King's private chapel at
early prayers, eight o'clock, where the royal family constantly attend ; and
they walk home to breakfast afterwards.2
and a few pages after :
July 3, 1 786. I seldom miss going to early prayers at the King's chapel,
at eight o'clock, where I never fail of seeing Their Majesties and all the
royal family.3
This practice of King George the Third is made in 1 794 the text
of an exhortation to frequent the daily service : following
the example of a Personage, who has a greater weight of duties, a greater
burden of cares, a greater variety of earthly concerns upon his mind, than any
other individual amongst us. ... After this, let no excuses be made for
the neglect of our daily Service.4
This daily attendance still went on in I Sop,5 that is until the
year immediately before the illness from which the King did not
recover.
The attendance at the daily services of the Collegiate Church at
Manchester was maintained at least till late in the century. An old
lady dying in 1 790 is spoken of as attending the services "almost daily,
and latterly brought by two footmen in livery in a sedan chair ".6
Quite at the end of the eighteenth century the editor of the
sermons of Dr. Berkeley, the son of the philosopher, speaks of the
week day services as if they were a thing given up recently, within
the memory of man.
1 BoswelVs Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. iii. p. 436.
Letter dated Aug. 30, 1780.
2 Letters of Mrs. Delany, London, Longman, 1820, sec. ed. p. 60.
3 ibid. p. 67.
4 William Best, An Essay on the Service of the Church of England, considered as a
daily service, S.P.C.K. 1794, p. vi. of the preface written by the editor of 1794.
5 See the Times of June 6, 1809.
6F. R. Raines and F. Renaud, The fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester,
Chetham Society, 1891, Part ii. p. 213.
104 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE.
The editor humbly conceives that one great cause of the ignorance of
the lower ranks of people, and of course the lamentable decay of Christian
piety, is the almost universal abolition of week-day prayers in the country.
. . . Many aged poor people, unable to read in their own small-print Bibles,
by attending regularly week-day and saints -day prayers, hear the word of
God read to them. . . .
It is quite delightful ... to see what numbers of traders high and
low attend the week-day prayers at Henley upon Thames. . . . Very early
and late prayers in London are still attended, as about thirty years ago
they were at Canterbury. The editor has frequently counted twenty ladies,
gentlemen, traders, and servants, in the sermon-house, where they were
read at Canterbury on a morning at six o'clock.1
Imitation is the sincerest flattery; and at the end of the seven
teenth century it would seem that the Dissenters copied the daily
services of the Church. Dryden, in his play of Limberham, has the
following dialogue between a master and his man :
GERVASE. 'Tis already order'd, Sir : But they are like to stay in the
outer Room, till the Mistress of the House return from Morning Exercise.
WOODALL. What, she's gone to the Parish Church, it seems, to her
Devotions.
GERV. No, Sir ; the Servants have inform'd me, that she rises every
Morning, and goes to a private Meeting-house ; where they pray for the
Government, and practise against the Authority of it.2
So at the beginning of the next century, in 1711, one of the
correspondents of the Spectator complains of his wife thus :
I am one of those unhappy Men that are plagued with a Gospel- Gossip,
so common among Dissenters (especially Friends) Lectures in the Morn
ing, Church- Meetings at Noon, and Preparation Sermons at Night, take up
so much of her Time, 'tis very rare she knows what we have for Dinner.3
Ralph Thoresby, not exactly an enthusiastic Churchman, doubt
ful about the cross in baptism, "(which though I think lawful, yet
had rather omit) " about godfathers, and kneeling at Communion,
yet thus speaks of the daily service on August 8, 1702 :
nor should I ever, I hope, as long as I am able to walk, so far forbear
a constant attendance upon the public common prayers twice every day.4
Thus a man with a Nonconformist mind can see the advantage
of a daily cycle of worship, and the daily services must have been
1 George Berkeley, Sermons, London, Rivingtons, 1799, editor's preface, p. xxii.
2 John Dryden, Limberham : or the Kind Keeper, act i. sc. i in Dramatick Works,
London, Tonson, 1763, vol. iv. p. 289.
3 Spectator, No. 46, Monday, April 23, 1711.
4 The diary of Ralph Thoresby, ed. Joseph Hunter, London, Colburn, 1830, vol. i.
P- 375-
DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 105
attended by dissenters who found them profitable ; for the Guardian
remarks :
It has happened that the Person, who is seen every Day at Church,
has not been in the Eye of the World a Churchman, and he who is very
zealous to oblige every Man to frequent it, but himself, has been held a
very good Son of the Church.1
The tables given below are the best answer to the opinion com
monly entertained that the clergy in the Church of England were a
slothful and indolent set of men throughout the eighteenth century.
It is also some testimony to the devotion of the laity ; for, as Sir
Walter Besant observes, "clergymen certainly do not go on reading
the prayers to empty pews ".2
But malice has not been wanting in attempts to exhibit the
English clergy in the worst light. At the end of the eighteenth
century they had very possibly become lax, but not to the degree
which some represent Thus Arthur Young, while exonerating the
clergy of France from gross outward scandals, blames the English
clergy of his time (about 1792) and accuses them of reeling from
inebriety to the pulpit. Advertisements like this, he asserts, were
never seen in France :
Wanted a curacy in a good sporting country where the duty is light
and the neighbourhood convivial.3
It should, however, be noticed that Arthur Young distinctly
disavows having seen the advertisement. He has only been told
of it. He gives no reference, and, like many other amusing scandals,
it may possibly prove incapable of verification. Perhaps some may
doubt if it were just of him to bring so grave an accusation on such
insufficient grounds. Even with the high character which the
French clergy bear so deservedly at the present moment, one may
read every now and then accusations against them of drunkenness
in public places.
Sir John Hawkins writing in 1787 when the Latitudinarian
influence had become strong, says that the clergy were then
neglecting their studies for cards, preaching the sermons of others, and
affecting, in many particulars of their dress, the garb of the laity.4
and farther on he says :
1 Guardian, No. 80, Friday, June 12, 1713.
2 Walter Besant, London in the Eighteenth Century, A. & C. Black, 1902, p. 147.
8 Arthur Young, Travels in France, ed. Betham- Edwards, Bell & Co. 1905, p. 327.
4 John Hawkins, Life of Samuel Johnson, London, 1787, p. 19.
106 DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE.
the clergyman was now become an amphibious being, that is to say
both an ecclesiastic and a laic.1
These statements are far more likely than the gross insinuations
of Arthur Young. And it may be remembered that Coleridge when a
Unitarian Minister in 1798 declares that the clergy are many of them
Unitarians and Democrats,2 very much as many at the present day.
But supposing all these accusations to be true, so far as the writers'
experiences went, there were yet clergymen who did their duty by
their parishes even at the end of the eighteenth century. Let us
take as an example an obscure country parish in Wiltshire where if
we judge from the births and deaths entered in the registers the
population was sparse. Yet it is recorded that Dr. John Eyre,
who died in 1792, had been Curate for thirty-three years,
in which long time he never once omitted the Duties of his Sacred
Function, performing Divine Service twice every Lord's Day, Saints' Days,
and every Wednesday and Friday unless hindered by the mere force of
extreme affliction.3
The prayers which this good man offered to the Almighty were
doubtless as warm and affectionate as those which in the beginning
of the twentieth century we put up with all the aid that music and
magnificent surroundings can give. I remember reading in the
columns of the Tablet, in 1885, the statement by a convert to
Popery that he recollected the peculiar delight of evensong without
music in an unrestored church.
One of my correspondents, a convert, writes to me of the charm still
dwelling in his memory of the Anglican Evensong as he recalls it, on
many a peaceful summer afternoon, in a quiet, unrestored little church in
the heart of the country (with a glimpse of rural landscape seen through
the open doorway), where there was no chanting or intoning, but where
the service was simply and distinctly read.4
But when the daily services in the parish church were discon
tinued, the instinct of churchmen led them to a domestic or private
recitation at home of the very pith and marrow of the divine service,
that is, the daily psalms and lessons. They used to be read in many
families till after the middle of the nineteenth century. It is
recognised now by our best liturgical scholars that it is the psalms
1 John Hawkins, Life of Samuel Johnson, London, 1787, p. 261.
2 See below, ch. vi. p. 192.
8 G. R. Hadow, The Registers of the Parish of Wylye in the county of Wilts,
Devizes, G. Simpson, 1913, p. 141.
4 Tablet, Feb. 14, 1885, p. 259, in a note to Letter IV. on the Conversion of Eng
land, by Mr. St. George Mivart.
DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 107
and the lessons followed by the Lord's Prayer, which make up the
essence of divine service.
Mr. Henry Jenner tells me that his grandfather, Sir Herbert
Jenner-Fust, who was appointed Dean of the Arches in 1834, used
every morning to read the psalms and lessons of the day in his
study, before going into Court.
The custom was already known in the first half of the eighteenth
century.
From the vain converse of the world retir'd
She reads the psalms and chapters for the day.1
At the end of the eighteenth century Mary Lamb had to read to
her elders " the psalms and the chapters, which was my daily task ".2
And the same was the practice of Mrs. Temple with her son
Frederick, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.3
Dr. Pusey speaks of the practice as a matter of common know
ledge before 1833 :
Since our Daily Service has been nearly lost, many pious individuals,
it is well known, have habitually read just that portion which the Church
has allotted.4
Amongst my own kith and kin, I can remember the reading of
the daily psalms and lessons by a daughter to an aged mother about
the year 1850.
Describing the practice of a Devonshire family, perhaps before
1 840, the author says :
We used to be in the schoolroom at eight, and then we read round, by
turns, the Psalms and Lessons for the day.5
SYMBOLS IN TABLES BELOW.
1692 = Single Sheet folio [British Museum, 491. k. 4. (n.)].
1708 = A new view of London, in two volumes, London, Chiswell, 1708.
1714 = James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714.
1732 = New Remarks of London, collected by the Company of Parish Clerks, printed
by Edward Midwinter, 1732.
1746 = William Best, An Essay upon the Service of the Church of England, considered
as a daily service, London, 1746.
1824 = London Parishes, London, Weed and Jeffery, 1824.
s = summer ; w = winter.
1 Edward Young, Works, London, vol. i. p. 122, in Love of Fame, Satire V.
2 E. V. Lucas, The Life of Charles Lamb, London, Methuen, sec. ed. 1905, ch. iii.
p. 25.
3 Memoirs of Archbishop Temple, edited by E. G. Sandford, London, Macmillan,
1906, vol. i. p. 18.
4 Tracts for the Times, No. 18, on Fasting, by E. P. Pusey, new edition, 1840, p. 8.
5 An elderly Bachelor, Not many Years ago, London, Skeffington, 1898, sec. ed. p. n.
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DAILY SERVICE AS ATTENDED BY THE PEOPLE. 109
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APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV.
LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN OF THE INNS OF COURT TO DR.
DENNIS GRANVILLE, COMPLAINING OF NEGLECT IN SAYING THE
DAILY SERVICE, JANUARY, 1683.
[BODLEIAN MS. RAWLINSON D. 851.]
(f. 198). Letter from a young Gentleman, Student in the Inns of Court ^ to a
Reverend Divine in the Country, Complaining of ministers Irregularity in
the Citty of London, etc. in point of Conformity.
REVEREND SIR, Knowing you to have a right Nocion of that exact Con
formity to the Rule of God's Publick Worshipp, which the Church requires,
having made it both your Study and your Practice, to keep up the Re-
putacion of our Liturgy, which I have often heard you Declare you thought
soe Sacred, that you judg'd it a great fault in any Churchman to Add
thereto, or Diminish from it, in the Publick Discharge of his Office, I make
bold to addresse myself to you for Resolucion in some particulars, that I
have frequently Discoursed with you, desiring you to give mee a little more
ample Satisfaction by your Pen, then I have been capable to receive from
your Discourse, by word of Mouth, concerning our old Theme of Con
formity (which you know is the ordinary Subject of our Discourse) how far
the Comon Prayer book, as it now stands Ratified by two Acts of Uniform
ity, obligeth both Priest and people. You will pardon mee Sir I hope, if I
make bold sometimes to Censure some of your Brethren, being of an In-
feriour Profession, and Exalted no higher than a Round cap in one of the
Inns of Court.2 No Man Honours the Function more than I doe, and it
is Respect to the Coat, as well as God's Service, that does ingage mee, if
my Heart deceives mee not, in this present Attempt. I have had, from my
very Cradle, a great Affection for the Church of England, and have been
all along of the Judgment, that God's Publick Worshipp ought to bee pre
scribed, and not Prostituted to the Wills and Fancies of any private person.
And have thought it my great Felicity in being born a Member of the
Church of England which Binds up Ministers Hands more 'strictly than
other Churches, from varying from the publick Rule Established by Law.
1 After Court, Compla struck out in MS.
2 Altered in MS. from Exalted no higher than a Shog.
in
H2 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV.
Sir I may chance to bee a little too Nice and Squeamish, in this particular;
and if you find mee soe, I pray shew mee my Errour and set mee Right.
I Confesse I am much offended and Disturbed, whensoever I hear any
Minister Maime God's Publick Service, or add any New Matter of his own,
or else Exalt his own Prudence, in Varying from the Forme or Order
thereof, tho' hee should use no other Prayers, but what are Conteined in
the Book. All which seems 1 to mee to bee Expresly against the Designe
of the Church as well as his own Obligacions, Every Priest having Promised
the contrary, both by Word of Mouth and under his Hand. These Things
alone do Create a great Deale of Disturbance to my Mind, for it causeth
mee to 2 trott up and down to the Prejudice of my Health, as well as my
Affairs, on Sundayes as well as Weekdayes, for the Satisfaction of an Intire
Service, performed Exactly according to the Kubrick without any Exercise
of the Prudence of a Private Man,3 which does methinks 4 but Sully a Divine
Office of Publick Composure and Authority. Which is a Felicity which I
cannot yet Discover in all London, tho', Blessed bee God, London is
Metamorphised exceedingly for the better, in Point of Conformity both of
Priest and People. Wee have yet as many severall wayes of Worshipp, as
wee have Ministers, and every one that I could yet Discover, offends in
some thing that is clearly contrary to Law, which tho' it may appear some
times to bee but in a very small Matter, yet it being a Breach of an Esta-
blish'd Publick Order, and an Exaltacion of Private Prudence above the
Church's, it appears to mee to bee a very high Offence, and I am sure it is
of very Lamentable Consequence, it being probably one speciall Root of
our Non-Conformity, Ministers by Neglect of their Duty, Creating wrong
Nocions in the people, and the people taking wrong Measures from their
Divided Practice, which Proclaimes a manifest Contempt of the Book, which
they have, Publickly in a Congregacion, Declared, that they did approve of
in their Judgment and Resolve to Practice ; for soe much 1 5 have ever
Conceived the Words of Assent and Consent to suppose. To bee a little
more particular. One Cuts of[f] the Preparatory Exhortacion, Dearly Be
loved Brethren etc., Another the Benedictus and Jubilate, and satisfyeth
himself with a Psalme in Meeter in stead thereof, out of Sternald and
Hopkins, which, all know, is no part of your Office, and a bad Translacion,
considering 6 the Language of our Age (tho' probably it was very tolerable
when it was first Composed) and never approved of in a Convocacion. A
Third brings in part of the Visitacion Office, Comanded to bee said in the
Sick Man's presence, into the Publick Congregacion, and sometimes with
soe much Impertinence, and Indiscreet Addicions of his own, by reason of
the multitude of Bills that are brought to 7 Ministers here in our 8 City ;
1 altered from seem. 2 to added above the line.
3 Man added above the line. 4 methinks added above the line.
5 I added above the line. 6 our struck out after considering.
7 to altered from the. 8 our altered from the.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. 113
that besides the severall Disturbances occasioned by sundry Hiatus's, by
the Surprisall of the Minister with some Bills, to which hee knowes not
what to say, I have often Blush'd for the Ministers Sake, to see him Intro
duce a Practice voluntarily on his own head, and to Manage it with soe
little Discretion, and as I humbly Conceive not at all to Edificacion. A
Fourth Adds very Formally a Preface of his own l to the Recitall of the
Creed, tho' hee (f. i98b) would not allow of2 one of the Church's3 to
the whole Service. A Fifth Jumbles both first and Second Service to
gether, Cutting of[f] not only the Concluding Prayer of St. Chrysostome, and
the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, but allso our Lord's Prayer, in the
Front of the Comunion Office, which I have alwaies look'd on as an extra
ordinary piece of Boldnesse. A Sixth more presumptuously not only Cuts
of[f] the Lord's Prayer alone, but both the 4 Lord's Prayer and Nicene Creed
allsoe. A Seventh, who avoids those Irregularityes, yet Presumes after
Sermon 5 to Cut of the Prayer for the Church Militant, and the Final
Benediction, The Peace of God, etc. hoping to satisfye his Congregacion,
(but I am sure hee never Satisfied mee) with a Benediction of his own
Choice, and Prayer of his own Composure. An Eight [h] Justles out the
Office of Churching, or Publick Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth,
til after the Benediction and Departure of the Congregacion, tho' it bee
Evident, that the Office was intended Publickly in time of Divine Service,
because there is not added thereunto, as to the Office of Buriall, etc. any
Conclusive Prayer or Benediction. A6 Ninth takes as great a Liberty
with the Sacrament of Baptism, as others doe with the ordinary Service,
and will not Allow 7 it 8 the Honour that the Church Designs, in being
done after the 9 Second Lesson, in the face of a Congregacion ; (which,
Gravely and Reverently Perform'd, I have ever Conceived more to Edi
ficacion than the best Sermon), shuffling it over, as I have often seen, at a
Font, sometimes unhappily Placed in a Corner, with not above ten persons
to assist thereat, when there were before above a thousand in the Congre
gacion, thus Depriving the poor Infant of the joint Prayers of the Assembly,
and the Assembly of the great Advantage of hearing the Solemn Repeti-
cion of their Vow at Baptisme. An Office, which, if it were not Comanded
to bee done in Time of Divine Service, appears to bee soe Intended, be
cause there is noe Blessing Annexed thereunto, more than to the former.
A Tenth on a Sacrament Day takes upon him contrary to the Designe of
the Church Gravely to Dismisse his Congregacion with a Blessing, for
Prophanely turning their Backs upon God's Altar, Pronouncing the very
Peace of God to those that proclaime a manifest Contempt of their Saviour's
1 of his own added above the line. 2 of added above the line.
3 of the Church's added above the line. 4 the added above the line.
5 Sermon altered from Service. 6 A added above the line.
7 not Allow written twice, and the second time struck out.
8 it added above the line. 9 the added above the line.
8
U4 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV.
Death and Passion, by a sinfull Departure, when they are Invited to that
Heavenly Feast, not only by the Exhortacion of the Priest, but by the
very Elements Exposed on the Altar. Sir, If I should prosecute this point
of l the Cleargy in 2 their Irregularityes, I should make my Lettre like a
Fanatick Sermon, and come up to one and thirtiethly, which would Tyre
both you and mee allsoe. The other Things therefore at present I shall
only hint to you in grosse, namely the Reading the Communion Service in
the Desk, when the Church appoints it at the Altar. The Reading not
Service at all in most Churches weekly, when the 3 Church Commands it to
bee in every one Dayly. Catechising the Children but only in Lent, when
the Church comands it throughout the whole Year, and when they do
Catechise, performing that Duty on Week dayes, in a very small Assembly,
when the Church comands it to bee done on Sundayes and Holydayes in
the Afternoon, and 4 when here in our City wee may assure ourselves of a
very full Congregacion. Churching Women in the Chamber, as well as
Visiting the Sick in the Church. Baptising Children almost generally
in private Houses, without the least appearance of Necessity. And Ad-
ministring the Comunion allsoe oftentimes to the whole, in private where
they have no Conveniency of a Chappell ; which as I remember is quite
contrary to the Canon, and I am sure, the Dignity of that holy Sacrament.
And these three last Dutyes most comonly performed, as our Burialls are,
without the Surplice, and sometimes, I have seen, without a Gown. These
manifest Contradictions of the Law do very much Scandalise mee, and I
doubt not, many others; but that which does chiefly Discompose mee
when I am in the Church, (and which does almost unfit mee, by Disturb
ing my Thoughts, to pray that Day), is, to see a Minister, who has Sub
mitted to the Authority of the Church, in his Ordinacion and Admission
to a Living, Promising Canonicall Obedience, nay who has Subscribed
under his own Hand, that hee does approve of the Prayers of the Church
of England and resolves in Publick to use no other, Presume not only pub-
lickly 5 to affront his Mother, but to Expose himself, by giving himself the
Lye, by Venting a Prayer, (and sometimes I have heard an Impertinent
one) of Private Composure. In which Practice there seemd to mee so
many Absurdityes, that to Reflect on them all Severally would afford
Matter enough for such another Letter. I shall rather refer you to an
Excellent little Pamphlet which I lately met withall, Intitled the Old Puri
tan Detected and Defeated, by a Reverend Divine, now with God, which
I am told was the worthy Doctor Steward, a great Sufferer, and Clark of
the Closet to his Majestic, when hee was abroad at Paris. Which Piece
has done a great Deale of Good already in shaming some out of this
1 this point of added in the margin. z in altered from according to.
3 the altered from they. 4and added above the line.
5 publickly added above the line.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. 115
Irregularity,1 and will I hope erelong Convince many more (to which End
it will bee a very good Work I think, that it was made very Publick, and
Dispersed about the Kingdome) that this Irregular Practice Feeds a Temper,
which must Inevitably, if there bee no timely Check given thereto, Worme
out once againe the Common Prayer; for I am persuaded (f. 199) as this
Worthy Authour Intimates, that whereas it was at first a piece of Malicious
Craft, (not to say worse) in Cartwright, who certainly was the Beginner of
this Practice, soe it is now only Inconsideracion in the Generality of Cleargy
who Continue it. Tho' I am struck with Admiracion, how soe many
Eminent and Accomplish'd Persons, who are great Ornaments to the
Church of England in other particulars, should bee soe grosly Deluded, as
to Imitate soe pernicious a Practice, which fully Consider'd and Examined,
I am confident, cannot bee maintained by any Ingenious and Sincere
person, that has a Real Affection, as to the maine, for the Church of Eng
land. And methinks it is now Impossible, (Mens Eyes being, God bee
praised, a little more open, than they have been this twenty Years) but that
a Point of soe great Importance, and the Strong .Hold of the Non-Conform
ists,2 must bee Consider'd, and Examined to the very Bottome ; and Care
taken for the Banishment out of the Pulpit all kinds of Prayers and Ad
dresses to God, that have not the Stamp of Authority, whether Ex Tempore
ones, or else Forms of Private Composure, since both are certainly a Trans
gression of the Law and open a Gap to the Exercise of Private Prudence
in God's Publick Worshipp, the most Destructive Thing Imaginable to an
Establish 'd Liturgy, and absolutely contrary to the Designe of the Church
of England which does not give the least Liberty to a Minister to use any
of his own Words, when hee speaks to the people, before Reading the first
or second Lesson. Which well Consider'd, will bee a sufficient Argument
that the Church of England never intended 'that every Minister should
Leade the people in Prayer before a Sermon, whereto there are greater
Qualificacions and more Sincerity Required, than to Preaching to the
People, which yet wee know, ought not to bee performed without License
from the Bishopps or the Universityes.
Sir I beg your Pardon that I have Presumed thus far, in Interrupting
you with soe Prolix a Letter, and in making sometimes a little too bold
Reflections upon the Practice of the Cleargy of the Church of England.
What I have writ, I appeale to God, is out of an honest Zeal, and if I Err
herein, I beseech you, who have taken soe much Pains with mee already
to take a few more, in Convincing mee, where you Conceive mee in the
wrong, as well as Establishing mee where you Judg mee in the Right. In
order whereto I do assure myself, that you will Condescend soe far, as to
Pen down your Thoughts, as I have already Intimated, in the Beginning
1 Irregularity altered from Irregular Practice.
2 and . . . N on- Conformists added in the margin.
8*
n6 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV.
of this Letter, in all these particulars relating to God's Service, which I
humbly Recommend to your Consideracion, during the Time of this
Ensueing Lent, and Returne them to mee, if possible, some few Dayes
before Easter, for I do not doubt they may Contribute, as your Discourses
and Letters have often done, to the putting my Mind in Frame, and
raising it to a higher Pitch of Devotion than ordinary, according to all our
Obligacions at the great Solemnity of Easter. I am, Sir, more than ever
Convinc'd of the great Necessity, of making Religion and Vertue the
Businesse of my Life, to which good Work, your good Counsell, by God's
Blessing has much Contributed, and shall Indeavour, by the Assistance of
the Almighty, with Fresh Courage and Resolucion, to Encounter all the
Difficultyes and Temptacions of my Profession, which I Confesse are not
a few, because my usuall Acquaintance and Companions of the Inns of
Court, are none of the greatest Pretenders to Strictnesse of Life and high
Devotion. In short, Sir I am very earnestly Bent to Save my Soul, and 1
to Redresse any Scandalls that I may 2 have given by the Youthfull Vani
ties and Vices of my past Life, desiring that I may Live soe, that neither
my Conversacion, nor Practice, in the Way of my Calling, may Prove any
Dishonour to the Church of England, whereto I am with wonderfull
Affection Devoted, and in the Constitucion whereof I every Day see more
and more Beauty, and by the serious Study whereof, (and more especially
the Comon Prayer book, which, with the Learned and Pious Dr. Comber's
Treatises thereon, I have spent some Time in considering, as well as my
Lord Cook upon Littleton) I hope to Improve myself in Christianity, and
true Orthodox Religion, than by all other Books in the world, besides my
Bible. And tho' I fear I shall never arrive to the Pitch of Devotion of
that worthy and Pious Person, who lately Published some excellent
Advice to the Readers of the Comon Prayer, by the Name of a well mean
ing and unlearned Laick etc. yet I hope I shall Labour Constantly in my
poor Sphere to doe all that I can towards the Raising its Reputacion,
which notwithstanding the false Suggestions of the Fanaticks, that wee do
Idolize the Comon Prayer, suffers methinks under vile Contempt, soe long
as Private Men 3 are permitted in the Publick Celebracion to Add thereto,
or Diminish from it, or in any way to Vary or Change its Order, which
doth in such an extraordinary Manner Disgust mee, whensoever I Discover
any such Irregularity in any Cleargyman, tho' hee bee of the highest Note,
(f. i99b) that I cannot easily Compose myself, I confesse my Infirmity, to
give soe hearty Attencion 4 as I ought to his Discourses from the Pulpit,
having some odd 5 kinds of Suspicions arise in my Soul, concerning those
persons, on whom I Discover soe Notorious a Flaw and Grosse Ignorance,
pardon the Expression, in Reference to the Designe of the Church in her
1 doe struck out after and. 2 may altered from might.
3 Private Men altered from any Private Man.
4 Attencion altered from Intencions. 5odd added above the line.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV. 117
Incomparable Liturgy. If I have been Transported into any unbecoming
Expressions, by my great Concerne for the best of Forms, I shall upon
your Censure of them, without farther Dispute, Confesse them, and Crave
your Absolucion. Beseeching you that you will by no meanes Deny mee
the humble Request that I make you here in this Letter, more than you
doe your Prayers or good Advice by Word of Mouth, which I beseech you
to Continue, I rest, with great Sincerity and Affection
Dear and Reverend Sir
Your most faithfull and most
New Years Day (i68§). humble Servant
Answer from the aforesaid Divine to the
Gentleman of the Inns of Court.
SIR, I received yours Dated the first of January within a few Daies after the
Date, which Pious Letter I esteem the kindest Newy ear's- Gift I have re
ceived thes a1 many Years. I was at first Surprized with the Length
thereof, having not, you know, soe much Leisure as Will, particularly to
Answer long Letters from my friends. But as soon as I had Read a few
Lines, I found the Subject soe Gratefull to mee, that I did not only Read
it through once, but perused it a second Time with serious Consideracion,
and before I laid it out of my Hand, came to a Resolucion, to Comply with
your Desires in Penning down my poor Reflections, on every one of those
Heads you Recomend to my Thoughts. It did in an extraordinary
Manner please mee, to receive soe good a Straine of honest and Pious Zeal,
from a young Gentleman in the Inns of Court, for our Incomparable
Liturgy, never the lesse admirable, for being neglected by some and Des
pised by others. It Relishes methinks more of a Colledge, than of a
House, Dedicated to the Study of the Law, and you seem much better
Qualified for a Square Cap, than a Round. Among your Books of Law,
and other good Authors, wherein I know you Conversant, you have not
I see forgot your Bible, no nor your Comon Prayer Book neither ; the
Study of both which, in some measure, is certainly Incumbent on Men of
all Professions. But I need say little to this Point, your Practice thereof
shews, that you are fully Convinced in this Particular. I shall therefore
hasten to the Subject whereto you presse mee, only premising, that I begin
to bee very much ashamed, (and soe I believe speedily, will bee 2 very
many of my Brethren too likewise), that the Laicks, both Learned and
Unlearned, begin now to Reproach us parsons, in outstripping of us in our
own Trade. But I shall easily absolve them from that Sin, where I dis
cover soe good Fruit, of their Pains, as I do in your Religious and
Canonical Letter, and that other Judicious and Devout 3 Piece, by Way
1 a added above the line. z bee added above the line,
s Devout altered from good.
n8 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV.
of Advice to the Readers of the Comon prayer, which you mencioned to bee
lately Publishd, by a well Meaning and Unlearned Laick. The Authour
whereof, who I am Informed is a Citizen of London, hath seasonably done
his Part, towards Redeeming the Reputacion of the Citty, as you have
yours l to restore the Honour of the Temple ; for his Book does assure mee
hee was no Ignoramus Juryman, nor Tumultuous Petitioner, as your Lines
do abundantly, that you were not very Conversant last Christmas at the
Scandalous Disorder of your Revells. [This letter left unfinished in MS.]
1 yours added above the line.
CHAPTER V.
THE CHURCH BUILDING, ITS FURNITURE
AND DECORATION.
As soon as the Restoration was accomplished it was plain that
the ecclesiology of Laud had secured a complete triumph. The
aim of the puritan was to have a moveable communion table, on
tressels, brought out of the vestry for the communion service, and
set down in some vacant place in the church, the long sides facing
north and south, while no rails protected it. After 1660 this
struggle with the puritan is over ; the place of the Holy Table is
determined to be in the place of the mediaeval altar, with one of
its long sides against the east wall ; it is covered with a decent
carpet of silk ; there are often two wax candles upon it ; and it is
fenced with rails, at which the people no longer hesitate to com
municate kneeling. King Charles the First and Laud have given
their lives ; but their cause has won. No considerable section of the
Church of England has ever gone back to puritan practice, how
ever poorly the churches may have been kept.
Accordingly, at the Easter Vestry in 1662, Mr. Evelyn notes
how they undid the work of the Puritans :
April 6. Being of the Vestry, in the afternoone we order'd that the
communion table should be set as usual altar-wise, with a decent raile in
front, as before the Rebellion.
This was before the reformed Common Prayer was appointed
to be read and abjuration of the Solemn League ordered to be made.
Mr. Evelyn is careful on August 17 of this year to note down that
his vicars read both. Some fifteen years after, the keeping of
churches still lacked a good deal. On Sept. 10, 1677 for though
at Euston he says
the church is most laudable, most of the Houses of God in this country
resembling rather stables and thatch'd cottages than temples in which to
serve the Most High
yet the foul state brought on by twenty years of neglect, from
119
120 CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION.
1640 to 1660, could not be rapidly replaced by conditions
approaching to decency.
At Idbury "on the brinke of Glocestershire " Antony Wood
reports in 1674 that
the church is kept in excellent repaire, being an handsome and well built
pile.1
But this is owing to half a yard-land having been given for the
repair of the church by some ancient lord of the manor.
Some of the churches however must have been like Idbury
or Euston, and well kept, for in 1716 Hearne, not given to over
much praising, says of Whaddon
The Church is very neat and handsome.2
Those who look over the pages of a New View of London pub
lished in 1708, or of James Paterson's Pietas Londinensis published
in 1714, will be convinced that the building after the fire of 1666
and the upkeep in that decade were as good as possible. At St.
Mildred Poultry in 1714 Paterson remarks: "The Floor is paved
with Stone, and the Chancel with Marble," just such a distinction as
the Cambridge Ecclesiologists would have been pleased to make.
The same care was seen elsewhere.
About the same time, [1700] Mr. Nathanael Edmundson, of Man
chester, woollen draper, gave the marble pavement of the floor within the
altar rails, which event is recorded on a tablet of timber, placed against a
pillar at the north-east angle of the aisle, on the south side of the choir, to
this effect :—
" Ne Altari novis sumptibus exstructo, et modesto ornato Dispar foret
Pavimentum Marmoreum fieri curavit, Nathanael Edmundson, Lanarius
Mancuniensis, Anno Domini zyoo."3
A new altar had evidently been set up ; and the good soul
wished to have the floor of the presbytery at least equal in sumptu-
ousness to the new altar.
In the visit to Cambridge of Zacharias Conrad von Offenbach,
he went to Trinity College Chapel, and says :
The altar is of wood, very massive and well made. Behind it we
1 Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society,
1892, vol. ii. p. 284.
2 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne^Oxford Historical Society, 1901, vol.
v. p. 349-
3 [S. Hibbert,] History of the Foundations in Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834,
vol. ii. p. 285.
CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION. 121
noticed four very fine pictures, painted on the wall with water colours, re
presenting Christ, St. John, Mary the Mother, and Mary Magdalene.1
From the figures enumerated, it would seem most likely that
the Crucifixion was the subject of the altar piece.
The havoc wrought during the great Rebellion in the Welsh
churches seems to have been enormous, and the recovery exceeding
slow.
Dr. Fleetwood, the Bishop of St. Asaph, seeing apparently the
shameful state of so many of the churches in Wales in 1710, exhorts
to a liberal spending of money upon their repairs and decoration.
Is it not still an Indication of an excellent Devotion, and of a Mind
that truly honours God, and intends to promote his Service, to lay out
Money upon such Occasions ? There is nothing draws so near to Super
stition, as an unreasonable dread of it And anyone may foretel,
without the Gift of Prophecy, that unless this bountiful good publick Spirit,
prevail a great deal more among us, and be more encouraged ; an hundred
Years will bring to the Ground a huge Number both of our Temples and
our Synagogues.2
By Temples does the Bishop mean parish churches? by Syna
gogues chapels ?
The continued existence of this foul state in Wales is confirmed
by a writer a few years after.
In some, not only the Bells are taken away, but the Towers are de
molished, and in many others there are scarce any Seats, excepting here
and there a few ill contriv'd and broken Stools and Benches ; their little
Windows are without Glass, and darken'd with Boards, Matts, or Lettices ;
their Roofs decaying, tottering, and leaky ; their Walls green, mouldy, and
nauseous, and very often without Wash or Plaister, and their Floors ridg'd
up with noisome Graves without any Pavement, and only cover'd with a few
Rushes.
Later on he adds : their state
might well tempt you to think we had lain in the Road of the Turks and
Saracens, in some of their wild Excursions ; or that we had but very lately
pass'd the Discipline and Reformation of an Oliverian Army.3
Further : During Dr. Johnson's Welsh tour, he makes the fol
lowing notes at Bodville on August 24, 1774 :
JJ. E. B. Mayor, Cambridge under Queen Anne, ed. M. R. Rhodes, Cambridge
Antiquarian Society, 1911, p. 125.
2 William [Fleetwood], Articles of Enquiry . . . at his primary Visitation, no
place or printer, 1710, p. 58.
3 Er. Saunders, A View of the State of Religion in the Diocese of St. David's, About
the Beginning of the i8th Century, London, John Wyat, 1721, § ii. p. 17.
122 CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION.
We surveyed the Churches, which are mean, and neglected to a degree
scarcely imaginable. They have no pavement, and the earth is full of
holes. The seats are rude benches ; the Altars have no rails. One of them
has a breach in the roof.1
Altogether there seems little improvement in fifty years.
The state of the churches of England seems to have been worst
in the north where it borders on Scotland and where it would re
ceive encouragement in slovenly practice from the presbyterian
discipline. Dr. Basire writes : " the Archdeaconry of Northumber
land will take up a whole man to reforme the Parsons [and] to re-
paire the Churches".2 In 1665 the chancel of St. Nicholas, the
great church of Newcastle, let the rain in upon the Aldermen as
they received the communion. At Ilderton the chancel was
ruinous, at Ingram the church.3 In a neighbour diocese, that of
Carlisle, things were found almost as bad as this at the Visitation
of Dr. William Nicolson, the Bishop in 1704. At Bridekirk,
Aug. 25, "The Quire has Rails ; but everything else (in and about
it) looks very scandalous".4 Many of the other churches are re
ported as in much the same state. At Kirk Bampton " the Quire
is (as most of its Neighbours) long and nasty ; having no ascent in
it V Again at Kirkbride : " I never yet saw a Church and Chancel
(out of Scotland) in so scandalous and nasty a Condition ".6
At Kirk Bampton it was expected that there should be an
ascent into the Quire. As late as 1821, there was supposed to be
symbolism in the ascent :
I have heard it said, that the going down steps, or descending into the
main body of the church, and then the floor rising to the chancel and
altar, was intended as an emblem of our descending into the grave, and
rising again into the holy place, or heaven.7
This is just the explanation which would have delighted the
ecclesiologists of 1840.
In France, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Vener
able John Eudes reports a state of the churches very like that of
the Welsh churches.
1 A Diary of a Journey into North Wales in the year 1774, by Samuel Johnson,
LL.D. ed. R. Duppa, London, R. Jennings, 1816, p. no.
2 The Correspondence of John Cosin, Surtees Society, 1872, Vol. LV. part ii. In
troduction, p. ix.
3 loc. cit.
4 Miscellany Accounts of the Diocese of Carlile, . . . by William Nicolson, late
Bishop, ed. by R. S. Ferguson, London, Bell, 1877, p. 81.
*ibid. p. 15. Gibid. p. 21. 1 Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 5.
CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION. 123
Allez dans les eglises : vous en verrez plusieurs au dehors environnees
d'ordure et de puanteur ; au dedans tapissees de toiles d'araignees, pavees
de boue et de poudre ; les vitres et la couverture rompues et ouvertes au
vent, a la pluie, a la grele et a la neige ; les autels denues d'ornements et
couverts de poussiere, les pretres offrir le redoutable sacrifice avec des
aubes et des chasubles toutes dechirees, des corporaux et des purificatoires
quelquefois si sales qu'ils font mal au coeur ; des calices d'etain et tout
noirs ; le tres Saint Sacrement dans un ciboire de meme etoffe et dans un
chetif tabernacle tout couvert et rempli de poudre et d'ordure, sans lampe
et sans lumiere et sans aucune marque de religion.1
William Law speaks in 1726 as if the churches were then well
kept and likely to attract a connoisseur. Patronus, one of his
characters,
loves the Church of England because of the Stateliness and Beauty of
its Buildings ; he never comes to the Sacrament, but will go forty Miles to
see define Altar-piece?
William Law's favourable testimony should be heeded, for his
severity is well known.
The great Dr. Butler delivered a charge to his clergy at his
first coming into the diocese of Durham in 1751 exhorting them to
maintain the externals of religion, and amongst these the fabric of
the church.
In the present turn of the age, one may observe a wonderful frugality
in everything which has respect to religion, and extravagance in everything
else. But amidst the appearances of opulence and improvement in all
common things, which are now seen in most places, it would be hard to
find a reason why these monuments of ancient piety should not be pre
served in their original beauty and magnificence. But in the least opulent
places they must be preserved in becoming repair ; and everything relating
to the divine service be, however, decent and clean ; otherwise we shall
vilify the face of religion whilst we keep it up.3
Speaking of our country churches in 1756 a writer who does
not seem ill-disposed to the Church complains of the state in which
he finds them.
1 Jean Eudes, Traite de Vhonneur du aux lieux sacres, in Oeuvres completes, Vannes,
1906, t. ii. pp. 43, 44. Quoted by Henri Joly, Le Venerable Pere Eudes, Paris, Lecoffre,
1907, pp. 12, 13. Also see the miserable state in which the civil wars left the French
churches. (Louis Abelly, La Vie du Venerable Serviteur de Dieu Vincent de Paul,
Paris, Lambert, 1664, Livre I. ch. i. p. 2.)
z William Law, A practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, chap. ix. ed. by J.
J. Trebeck, Spottiswoode, 1902, p. 226.
3 Joseph Butler, Charge delivered to the Clergy . . . of Durham, 1751, in Works,
ed. W. E. Gladstone, Oxford, 1896, vol. ii. p. 408.
124 CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION.
The ruinous condition of some of these edifices gave me great offence
. . . the church perhaps has no other roof than the ivy that grows over
it. ... In other churches I have observed, that nothing unseemly or
ruinous is to be found except in the clergyman.1
In the next line he adds something in detail on the decoration
of the altar :
the 'squire of the parish, or his ancestors, perhaps, to testify their devo
tion and leave a lasting monument of their magnificence, have adorned the
altar piece with the richest crimson velvet, embroidered with vine leaves
and ears of wheat.
Dr. George Home, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, gives the fol
lowing account of a Sunday visit to a country church.
The church-yard joined to the park. Having surveyed everything
there, it being sunday, I went into the church ; to which one miserable
bell, much like a small porridge-pot, called half a dozen people, which
number comprehended the congregation. The church-yard itself was low
and wet ; a broken gate the entrance ; a few small wooden tombs and an
old yew tree the only ornaments. The inside of the church answered the
outside ; the walls green with damp ; a few broken benches ; with pieces
of mats, dirty and very ragged ; the stairs to the pulpit half worn away ;
the communion-table stood upon three legs; the rails worm-eaten, and
half gone. The Minister of this noble edifice was answerable to it, in
dress and manners. Having entered the church, he made the best of his
way to the chancel, where he changed his wig; put on a dirty, iron-
moulded, ragged surplice ; and after a short angry dialogue with the clerk,
entered his desk, and began immediately without looking into the book.
He read as if he had ten other churches to serve that day, at as many
miles distance from each other. The clerk sang a melancholy solo ; neither
tune nor words of which I ever heard before.2
Beyond all doubt there is before us a grave scandal. But such
cannot be said to be limited to the eighteenth century. In the last
decade of the nineteenth century I paid a visit to a church in the
diocese of Exeter and found it in like wretched state to that des
cribed by Dr. Home. I made some notes at the time : " General
appearance of great neglect throughout the church. The sexton
said that very few people came to the church. The font had the
drain stopped up, which was covered by an inverted, cracked, and
mended white ware bowl. There was a screen between the quire
and nave ; the gates were bolted and buttoned from the nave.
There was only one pew in the quire and over it were thrown a
1 Connoisseur, No. 134, Thursday, Aug. 19, 1756, 4th ed. Vol. IV. p. 226.
2 Olla Podrida, No. 33, Oxford, Rann, 1788, Saturday, October 27, 1787, p. 194.
On p. vi. the authorship is given to Z, that is, Dr. Home.
CHURCH BUILDING, FURNITURE AND DECORATION. 125
surplice much iron moulded, a scarf, and a bachelor's hood. The
altar was covered with a red baize cloth which did not come down
to the ground. There was much green mould about."
The moral which may be drawn from these two cases of grave
neglect of the House of God is that the scandal does not arise from
the age in which they are found but from the character of the
parson. Given a diligent parson and the evil soon ceases. Early
in the nineteenth century, in 1815, when a young clergyman first
came into the parish he found a most neglected church ; but in a
year or two all had been made decent.1
Miss Austen has some regard for the village church : " I told
him of the church's being so very well worth seeing".2 She is
speaking of the church at Kellynch. In Emma, Frank Churchill
on arriving at Highbury goes to see the church.3 Sir Walter Scott
speaks thus of the English Churches of his time :
It was one of those old-fashioned Gothic parish churches which are
frequent in England, the most cleanly, decent, and reverential places of
worship that are, perhaps, anywhere to be found in the Christian world.4
But of Scotland he makes Andrew Fairservice say : " the dog
kennel at Osbaldistone Hall is better than mony a house o' God
in Scotland ".5 Bos well tells us of St. Giles, once the cathedral
church of Edinburgh, that it was in 1773 "shamefully dirty ".6
Confirmatory of Sir Walter's opinion of English churches there
is a letter of Keble's describing a church near Fairford in 1818 as "a
pattern of neatness".7
I think it may be a fair conclusion to draw that, excepting the
first forty years or so of our period when the influence of the Puri
tan Rebellion was still felt, especially in the North, the way in
which a church was kept depended almost wholly upon the parson.
When he was careful and attended to his duty, the church was
clean and in good repair. And this is probably true of the whole
eighteenth century, if not of years later than 1833.
C£sar de Saussure, who was in England in the first half of the
1 The Christian Guardian, London, Gosnall, 1815, vol. vii. p. 85.
2 Jane Austen, Persuasion, ch. xiv. 3 Same, Emma, ch. xxiv.
4 Sir Walter Scott, Heart of Mid Lothian, ch. xxx. published in 1818.
5 idem, Rob Roy, end of ch. xix.
6 James Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, Aug. 16, 1773.
7 J. T. Coleridge, A memoir of the Rev. John Keble, third ed. Oxford, Parker, 1870,
p. 24.
126 THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE.
eighteenth century, has left us a description of the churches at that
time and of the services in them. His evidence may, it is thought,
be received, as in other parts of his book he shows a certain acquain
tance with church matters, and familiarity with ecclesiastical obser
vances.
I have told you that several Roman Catholic ceremonies have been
preserved, and are in use in the Anglican services at the present time.
The Book of Common Prayer, which is the liturgy, is almost a missal, if
you cut off the prayers addressed to the Holy Virgin and to the saints,
and those for the dead. The priests and choristers all wear long white
surplices when they celebrate divine service, but the preachers take them
off before stepping into the pulpit. In the royal chapels, the cathedrals,
and collegiate churches the services are chanted in a tone resembling that
used by the Roman Catholics in their services.
In all the churches the altars are covered with a velvet or damask silk
cloth ; candlesticks are placed upon them, and pictures are frequently
hung above as ornaments. Communion is taken kneeling, because this
attitude is that of humility. The sign of the cross is made only on a
child's forehead at baptism. Several saints' days are celebrated — not to
invoke the saints, but only as an opportunity for reading those portions
of the Bible in which their noble acts and lives are described.1
THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE.
Throughout our period there is to be found an undercurrent
of opposition to seemliness in the surroundings of the worship of
Almighty God. Puritanism was far from extinct, and throughout
the age it gives signs of revival every now and then as will be seen
farther on. But it never becomes dominant as before the Restora
tion. At the end of the seventeenth century it raised its voice in
this manner:
Prejudice. But, pray, what can you say to the Images over your College
Gates and in other places ; your young Boies painted with Wings at
their Backs over your Altars ; your Brass Candlesticks ; your Saints painted
in Glass Windows ? 2
1 Cesar de Saussure, A Foreign view of England in the reigns of George I. and
George II. London, Murray, 1902, Letter xiv. p. 318. The description of the Church
of England services by this layman will bear a very favourable comparison with the in
accurate report drawn up by Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia, of ecclesiastical affairs in
England in the reign of Edward the Sixth. Even if the original report in the Venetian
Archives be consulted (see my Ecclesiological Essays, Dela More Press, 1905, p. 244)
rather than Alberi, matters are not made much better. It is astonishing that any credit
should still be given to Barbaro's Relazione.
2 A Dialogue between Mr. Prejudice . . . and Mr. Reason, a Student in the
University, London, Sawbridge, 1682, p. 6.
THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. 127
But this sort of attack serves to show that in the twenty years
after the Restoration much had been done to return to the state of
affairs before the Rebellion, if not to make an advance upon it.
The following are early attempts to make things decent about
the altar.
The altar at Winchester described below in such glowing terms
must have been set up immediately after the Restoration, for Dr.
Morley was Bishop only from 1660 to 1662.
The Altar is the finest I ever saw in a Protestant Country ; it was made
of fine carved Wood by Bishop Morley after the Restoration, with a Canopy
and Curtain of Wood hanging down, with gilt Garlands ; and on each side
of the Altar run up Vases of Stone, with golden Flames coming out to the
Roof of the Church. . . . The Communion Rail before the Altar is also a
neat Piece of carved Work.1
On December 7, 1684, Evelyn goes to see the new altar of St.
James' Piccadilly, for so I take it that the church must be, as it was
consecrated on July 13 of that year. His gratification at the new
building is marked, and he must be allowed to be a judge, having
seen most of the great churches, whether at home or abroad.
1 went to see the new church at St. James's, elegantly built ; the altar 2
was especially adorn'd, the white marble inclosure curiously and richly
carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr. Gibbons in wood ;
a pelican with her young at her breast, just over the altar in the carv'd
compartment and border, invironing the purple velvet fring'd with I. H. S.
richly embroider'd, and most noble plate were given by Sir R. Geere, to
the value (as was said) of ^200. There was no altar anywhere in England,
nor has there ben any abroad, more handsomely adorn'd.
Concerning the altars and altar pieces in the London churches
rebuilt after the great fire of 1666 there is abundance of evidence,
and they must have been as good and handsome as money could
buy, and the taste of the age directed. It may be noted that
though the altar piece is almost general in the new City churches if
we go through the list in Paterson's Pietas Londinensis ; yet the
1 A journey through England in familiar letters, London, Pemberton, 1722, vol. ii.
p. 16.
2 Those who square all their ideas in faith and morals and less important things by
acts of parliament or what the police allows, may notice that the word altar is used
twice in our period in acts of parliament, 59 Geo. III. c. 134, s. 6, and 2 & 3 William
IV. c. 61. The latter enacts that the chapel shall " be subject to the Jurisdiction of
the Bishop and Archdeacon within whose Diocese and Archdeaconry the Altar of such
Chapel should be locally situate ". Thus no excuse need be given to persons who hold
these opinions for the universal use of the word altar by the eighteenth century
writers.
128 THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE.
organ is not so.1 Both altar piece and organ were abhorrent to the
puritan and their presence in a parish indicates that puritanism was
at a low ebb therein.
Pictures representing sacred subjects were very common over
the altar. The churches which escaped restoration in the nineteenth
century nearly always have a painting in the centre of the altar
piece.
Altar pieces and the pictures in them being so usual a part of
the furniture of a church it is hardly possible to enter upon an ac
count of all. It may be desirable to say somewhat of a few
particular cases, which have been chosen for their history or the
minuteness of the description.
One instance, that of All Hallows Lombard Street in 1708, de
serves a special mention and quotation of its description :
The Altar-piece is the most spacious and best carved that I have thus
far met with : It is of right Wainscot, and consists of 4 Columns with their
Entablature, all finely Cut with 5 Pediments of the Corinthian Order ; viz.
a Circular, and above it a Triangular, belonging to the two Nforth] Columns,
and to the two S[outhwar]d ; the Inter-Columns are the Commandments
done in Gold Letters upon Black, and the Lord's Prayer and Creed is done
in Black upon Gold. And in the middle bet [wee] n the Arching parts of
the Frames for the Commandments, is a Pelican feeding her Young with
her own Blood (an Emblem of our Saviour) ; and above the Cornish, over
the Commandments, is a Glory finely painted and adorned, with an Enrich
ment of Carving, as Flowers, Fruit, 6°<r. above all which is a large tri
angular Pediment and seven Candlesticks, representing the Seven Golden
Candlesticks we read of in the Revelations; which Altar-piece, I am
credibly assured, cost not less than 186 /.
The Communion-Table is finely finnier'd, under is the Holy Lamb on a
Chalice, and at each of the four feet of the Table is a Dove.2
Candlesticks, with sham tapers in them, seven or less in number,
were a frequent addition to the reredos of the eighteenth century.
Mr. Birch has figured many of these.3 They had them also in
the country churches ; for example, at Bledlow in 1783.*
At St. Vedast's Foster Lane, built by Sir Christopher Wren,
but described much later, there was
The altar-table, supported by four angels, is inclosed by singularly
elegant railing ; and the altar piece is composed of four Composite pillars
1 For an account of organs, see below in ch. vi. p. 185.
2 A New View of London, London, Chiswell, 1708, vol. i. p. 109.
3 George H. Birch, London Churches of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,
London, B. T. Batsford, 1896, large folio.
4 See below, in appendix to this chapter, item no. 6, p. 160.
THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. 129
with an entablature, a circular divided pediment, and an attick terminating
in another angular, under which is a Glory, inscribed " Glory be to God on
high." Perhaps there is not another church in England that contains a
nimbus with so superb a border : it is composed of three Cherubim im
mersed in clouds, and six winged infants in the highest possible relief, one
sounding two trumpets, and the remainder sporting with branches of palm.1
There was also a "Glory" at St. Michael's Cornhill in 1708.
On the N. and S. sides of the Altar is a spacious Pieddroit, and another
on the S. side painted, and a Chalice, Paten, Incense pot, Aaron's budded
Rod, and the Pot of Manna, etc. painted; and on the Roof over the
Table, is a Glory appearing in' Clouds, painted and gilt, some of whose
Rays are about 8 Foot in length.2
This " glory" must have been a canopy over the altar, and a
characteristic piece of work of the artist of the day. Very similar
constructions may be seen even now in some French churches form
ing a reredos over the altar, with enormous gilt rays protruding
from clouds.
There are three altar pieces that caused much disturbance at the
time when they were first set up, and two caused such scandal that
they had to be taken down ; or rather the picture which formed the
centre had to be removed. These are sufficiently important from
their notoriety to be described more at length.
To consider first the altar piece of St. Mary's Whitechapel, which
conveyed a scandalous personal attack upon an individual. The
circumstances are these :
Dr. White Kennett, once a Tory and High Churchman, thought
it well to reconsider his old opinions and become a Whig. This
change was not grateful to his former friends ; and, as Hearne tells
us, he passed with them under the name of Judas.3 Their resent
ment went farther; a new altar piece was set up at St. Mary's
Whitechapel, in which, in the foreground of a representation of the
Last Supper, White Kennett was depicted as the traitor himself.
1 James Peller Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p.
638.
2 1708, vol. ii. p. 420.
3 Thomas Hearne (Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1898, vol.
iv- P- 377) on July 12, 1714, notes that " Dr. Wellwood + of White Chappell hath pub
lished a Sermon about Altar Pieces, occasion'd by the Altar Piece there, which the
Bishop of London ordered to be pulled down. There is a Preface about the pulling it
down. He reflects upon White Kennett, commonly called Judas." On p. 336 the
bishop orders it to be altered, but on p. 352 it is taken down. Hearne (vi. 345) is
accused of calling White Kennett Proteus. Hearne has earlier in his Remarks a fine
tirade against him (i. 311).
9
130 THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE.
The portrait was unmistakeable ; the black patch, covering the spot
where in early life White Kennett had been trefined, was plainly
visible in the forehead, nearly touching the hair. Naturally this
indecency was resented by the friends of White Kennett, and the
Bishop of London, acting through his Chancellor, had the altar
piece taken down. An engraving may still be seen in the Library
of the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House ; where the
representation is rendered still more offensive by the lines under
neath :
Falleris, hac qui te pingi sub imagine credis ;
Non similis Judas est tibi ; poenituit.1
That all this should be possible shows how hateful his prin
ciples were to a large number of the churchmen of his time.
The next disturbance was at St. Clement Danes in the Strand.
Thomas Lewis who edited the Scourge^ a Vindication of the
Church of England, a periodical published in London in 1717,
managed thereby to draw upon himself the attention of the Whig
Government. In 1721 he proceeded to compliment the Church
wardens and vestry of St. Clement Danes for the zeal which they
showed in improving the beauty of their church ; on their intro
duction of pictures, as of King Charles the Martyr, which portrait
was "a solemn ornament to some Churches in this City," and on
keeping up the old custom of garnishing the church with flowers
and branches of trees. Yet he complains a little farther on that
no Images but of Lions and Unicorns must now be the Embellishments
of our Churches, and the Arms of the Civil Magistrate may stand with
Applause where the Cross ^ the Arms of a Crucified Saviour, must be de
faced as Popish and Idolatrous.2
As to placing the royal arms in the room of the Crucified
Saviour it may be noted that it was not peculiar to England :
The King of France had before visited the Society, and had taken
down the Image of Christ, which was over the Gate, and caused his own
Arms to be placed in the Stead.
The Distich
Sustulit hinc lesum, posuitque Insignia Regis,
Impia Gens ; alium non colitilla Deum?
1 Soc. Antiq. London : London Prospects, fo. 48.
2 Thomas Lewis, The obligation of Christians to beautify and adorn their Churches,
London, Hooke, 1721, pp. 26, 21, 23. He had published an essay upon the consecra
tion of churches, London, Strahan, 1719.
3[Thos. Watson,] The Ornaments of Churches, Oxford, 1761, Postscript, p. 2.
THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. 131
But what part, if any, did this Thomas Lewis have in bringing
about the hubbub that was caused by the new altar piece at St.
Clement Danes in the Strand about the year 172 5? It was as
serted that an angel in white and blue, by the side of St. Caecilia,
was the portrait of Princess Sobiesky, the wife of the Pretender.
This picture, supposed to be so disloyal, had been put up over the
altar ; crowds of irreverent persons came to see it, and the nuisance
became so great that the Bishop of London, Dr. Edmund Gibson,
the well-known Church historian, ordered it to be taken away. An
indignant parishioner writes as follows with all the accurate infor
mation of his class :
But never before was any popish Saint put over the Communion
Table in a Protestant Church. The Last Supper , the Passion, Crucifixion,
or some other Incidents of our Blessed Saviour's Life, are the general
Subjects given to Painters on these Occasions ; but to have a Consort of
Musick &c. (suppose it were not the Pretender's Spouse, and, probably,
some more of his Family, under the Form of Angels) is the most abrupt
and foreign that I ever saw or heard of.
A great many of our Churches have only the Pictures of Moses and
Aaron, on each side the Commandments. I have nothing to object against
them, but what I have before assign'd, yet have I often wondered why
Aaron, who made the Molten Calf, which occasioned the Breaking the
first two Tables ; Why he, I say, who was the Jewish High-Priest, should
be placed at a Christian Altar ? l
The Parishioner writes in the spirit of those who thought that
the ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor ;
for he exclaims against " so sumptuous an altar piece " that cost four
score pounds. Nowadays the objection to St. Caecilia would not
have been that she was an inhabitant of old Rome but that there is
no proof of her existence. But his views seem to be sound in looking
upon the Last Supper, the Passion, or Crucifixion as most proper for
an altar piece.
On June 3, 1907 I went to St. Clement Danes and found the
picture that caused this dreadful pother hidden away on a back stair
case. It is an ordinary St. Caecilia with an organ and harp, and angels
around, one of which was the supposed Jacobite portrait. It is now
hard to understand how it could be the cause of such a disturbance.
A real Jacobite would only have been satisfied if the central figure
1 A letter from a Parishioner of St. Clement Danes to the Right Reverend Father
in God Edmund Lord Bishop of London occasioned by His Lordship's causing the Picture
over the Altar to be taken down, London, J. Roberts, 1725, p. 21.
9*
132 THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE.
had been a portrait of Princess Sobiesky ; it would have seemed to
him disrespectful to have represented her as a mere attendant.
Neither of the two foregoing cases could be approved by the
Church authorities ; the first, because it was an injurious attack upon
a dignified clergyman, whatever may be thought of his tactics ; and
the second, because a political significance which was very possibly
not in the mind of the artist, was attached to it by the populace
who came in herds to stare. But in the third case, as far as
the evidence goes, the Bishop of London, Dr. Thomas Sherlock,
stood firm. An altar piece had been set up in the church of St.
James' Clerkenwell : it was in three compartments, separated by
Corinthian pilasters ; the Nativity in the centre, the Holy Child in
the arms of the Virgin Mother, with St. Joseph, and the ox in the
background ; while Moses and Aaron were in a compartment on
each hand.1 It was denounced to the bishop by one Thomas
Watson, and the usual complaint made of idolatry and superstition.
The bishop refused to move. Watson printed his complaint in a
letter to the papers.2
At Lincoln's Inn Chapel they had in 1714
the most curious Painting upon the Glass Windows of both Sides ;
first, the Patriarchs and Prophets on the north Side ; and the twelve
Apostles on the three Windows on the south Side.3
These appear to have been set up in the seventeenth century ;
the names of the donors being given.
But St. Margaret's Westminster saw a greater stir about the
painted glass in the east window. In 1762 the new window at the
east end having caused a considerable agitation outside the parish,
the question of the lawfulness of painted windows was taken before
the High Court of Delegates ; 4 the prosecutors seemed to have gained
nothing by their action, for the window was there in 1828 : 5 and, it
may be believed, still remains, though how much damaged by the
alterations during Dr. Hensley Henson's incumbency is not known
to me. The changes made have, perhaps, given delight to the baser
1 Library of the Society of Antiquaries, London : London Prospects, fo. 47.
2 Old Whig, Oct. 30, 1735. It is reprinted with the engraving at the Society of
Antiquaries.
3 James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714, p. 136.
4 Thomas Wilson, The Ornaments of Churches considered, Oxford, 1761.
5 Thomas Allen, The History . . . of London, London, Cowie and Strange, 1828,
vol. iv. p. 155.
THE ALTAR AND ITS FURNITURE. 133
sort of the High Church curate, but not to the English antiquary or
ecclesiologist.
In 1714 it is recorded that the Chapel Royal in the Savoy
has a fine Chancel, it's beautified with the Portraits of the twelve Apostles
at large, some painting upon the Glass Windows.1
At Bolton in 1750 Dr. Pococke notes a peculiarity in the
church :
The altar in the church is sett off from the east wall with a partition
which makes a vestry behind it, according to the rule in Queen Elizabeth's
time, that the Communion table should be in the middle of the church.2
We may accept the good bishop's statement of fact that a vestry
had been made under the east wall but hardly agree so readily with
what he tells us as to the cause. Apparently the altar was still in
the chancel and not in the middle of the church.
He notices the same thing at Wellington :
the altar is at a litle distance from the east end with a partition behind it.3
At Worcester in 1792 the thanks of the Dean and Chapter
were given to Mr. Green for presenting a picture of the descent
from the cross after Rubens, and for fixing it behind the altar of
the cathedral at his expense.4
At Manchester St. Peter's Church was consecrated on September
6, 1794, and it is noted that "Over the altar was placed a fine de
scent from the cross by Annibal Caracci ".5
St. Martin Outwich was rebuilt in 1796 and Malcolm describes
a curiosity in the ritual arrangements : that the pulpit was at the
west, while the altar was at the usual place, in the east, and of
stone.
The West end of the church has a deep recess. . . ,, The priest's and
clerk's desks, on the same level, are placed below, and on either side of
this pulpit, which compels the congregation to turn from the sacred spot
appropriated to the most solemn offices of our faith.
The Sacrarium resembles the Western recess in the outline, and the
cieling ; but the sides are plain. Three steps lead to the altar, which are
1 James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Taylor, 1714, p. 179.
2 The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Cam-
den Society, 1888, vol. i. p. 12.
sibid. p. 143.
4 John Noakes, The Monastery and Cathedral of Worcester, Longmans, 1866, p.
618.
5 S. Hibbert, History of the Foundations in Manchester of Christ's College, London,
Pickering, 1844, vol. ii. p. 164.
134 THE ALTAR AND ITS MATERIAL.
covered by a rich Wilton carpet. The table is a slab, supported by a plain
arch, and by caryatide winged boys, whose arms are crossed on their
breasts. The arch and tablet are an imitation of red marble, spotted with
white, with a very high polish; but the boys axe painted white, though of
stone ; the effect, however, is rich. Two dark purple velvet custions lay
on the table.1
Over the altar was a recent picture of the Ascension, but al
ready on the high road to decay.
Near the end of our period there is this entry in a parish
register :
Seaham.
The Reverend Richard Wallis late Vicar of this Parish, presented a
drawing in poker >2 by him of the Salvator Mundi, after Carlo Dolce' which
hangs in the church as an altar piece, according to his wishes and at the
desire of his three daughters. — Seaham 5 July, i827.3
This entry may be explained by supposing that the Rev.
Richard Wallis had during his lifetime placed this poker work over
the altar ; but at his decease doubts may have arisen of his intention
to bestow the drawing upon the church, to remove which the con
sent of his heirs to the gift was attested.
The material of which the altar is made is of no great import
ance provided it be handsome and costly. Mr. Micklethwaite has
said that
Stone or marble altars of the eighteenth and the first half of the nine
teenth century are not uncommon.4
And this appears to be the case. He adds :
In 1891 I saw one [a stone altar] in the church of Long Clawson in
Leicestershire which was curious for its classical affectation. It was only
3 feet 9 inches long, was of solid stone consisting of a die with a moulded
plinth and cap after the Roman pagan manner, and it bore in front a
dedicatory inscription Deo Triuno Optimo Maximo with the date 1738.
Altars set up in the better sort of churches during the eighteenth century
had generally marble tops, which were often carried by ironwork fixed into
the wall or the floor. Examples of this were very common till lately ; but
now many have been taken away, and amongst them those of the old church,
1 J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p. 410.
2 N.E.D. defines poker work as "Artistic work done by burning a design on the
surface of white wood with a heated pointed implement ".
3 J. S. Burn, The History of Parish Registers in England, sec. ed. London, J. R.
Smith, 1862, p. 189.
4 J. T. Micklethwaite, Ornaments of the Rubric, Alcuin Club, 1897, p. 22, note 4.
THE ALTAR AND ITS MATERIAL. 135
now the cathedral, at Wakefield, St. Mary's Church, Beverley, and All
Saints' Church, Derby.1
I cannot, as Mr. Micklethwaite is able to do, appeal to my own
observation of stone altars in churches spread over the land ; I can
only report such as I have chanced of late to meet with in print, of
dates within our period. Some that I do not record may perhaps
be such as were set up before 1833 ; but where I have had doubts
of their age, I have passed by such instances.
In 1703, in the midst of the greatest neglect, if not want of
decency, Dr. William Nicolson, the Bishop of Carlisle, found more
than one stone altar during his visitation. At Walton Mr. Dacre,
the patron, " promises shortly to refit the Altar (of Stone) and rail
it in ".2 At Grinsdale he finds church and chancel in ruins : " nothing
left but a good handsome Stone-Table heretofore used for an
Altar".3
At All Hallows the Great in 1708 :
The Communion-Table is a large Marble Slab, supported by a Figure
in Stone of the Angel Gabriel, and its Foot pace is also of Marble.4
So of St. Mary Aldermary :
The Communion-Table is a marble Slab on a carved Frame, resting
on a Foot pace of that Stone, black and white, inclosed with Rail and
Banister.5
At St. Antholin's
The Communion-Table (which is a large Marble Slab placed on a
carved Frame) is inclosed with Rail and Bannister, and the Choir paved
with black and white Marbles.6
At St. Mary Woolnoth
The altar-piece is enclosed by beautiful scroll-work railing ; and the
table is of marble, on spiral legs.7
At Rotherhithe on February 27, 1723 the vestry ordered that
the Church-wardens
do with all expedition (with the consent of Mrs. Baker) change a certain
Marble Slab (given by Mr. Field) for another, and Fit and make the same
convenient for a Communion Table.8
1 J. T. Micklethwaite, loc. cit.
2 Miscellany Accounts of the Diocese ofCarlile, ed. R. S. Ferguson, for Cumberland
and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 1877, p. 52.
3 ibid. p. 13. 4 1708, vol. i. p. 106.
5 1708, vol. ii. p. 365. 6 1708, vol. i. p. 133.
7 J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p. 433.
8 E. J. Beck, Memorials to serve for a history of the parish of St. Mary, Rotherhithe,
Cambridge, 1907, p. 254.
136 ALTAR FRO NT A LS.
At Farley in the West country Dr. Richard Pococke notes in 1 754 :
The top of the Communion-table is a piece of fine marble, not well
polished ; they call it Egyptian, but it seems to be of our pieces of marble,
which consists of several pebbles cemented together.1
The Bishop was a minute observer of all the various kinds of
marbles, stone, slate, etc. that he met with in his journeys.
Malcolm in 1803 mentions two churches in London where they
had the altar of porphyry.2
The stone altars in our period seem not to have followed the
mediaeval precedent of a solid stone erection on the top of which was
a slab marked by a cross in the places where the bishop had touched
the stone with the holy cream. They seem to have been frames of
stone or wood, upon which the stone slab was fixed. A hybrid
altar, part of stone, part of wood, is not to be commended. An
altar wholly of stone, or wholly of wood, is worthy of all respect ;
but a wooden altar with a stone slab, large or small, seems to en
courage the superstitious opinion that the Eucharist ought only to
be celebrated on stone.
Worse perhaps is the encasing of a wooden altar in stone or
marble and leaving it without a frontal (an ornament that no altar
should be without) so as to suggest the erroneous belief that the
whole altar is of stone.
One of the first authorities upon the history of the Roman cata
combs has told me that the altars in the catacombs and early
Roman churches were of wood, and moveable. And the altars of
stone, set up in the ages when stone was coming into use for altars,
show clearly that they are copying a table of wood.
ALTAR FRONTALS.
The frontal or altar cloth was one of the first things to be re
stored on the return of the King.
The Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. William Fuller, writes to Dr. San-
croft on Oct. 27, 1662 about a new frontal for the cathedral church.
I have a greater trouble to give you, which you will receive from my
Secretary Mr. Symonds 'now in London. It is to buy mee an altarcloth,
which I would have rich : one pane thereof to be Cloth of Gold, the other
I thinke Damaske, of a sky colour ; if it bee not too Gawdy. Our Cathedrall
hath a purple one of cloth paned with crimson Damaske : Mine I intend
1 The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Cam-
den Society, 1889, vol. ii. p. 153.
2 See below, pp. 141, 142.
ALTAR FRONTALS. 137
for solemne Dayes. The length of our Altar is 7 foote, one yard High, and
one yard broad. Above the Altar 2 yards to the Cornish. But how the
Cloth is to be fashiond, that I must leave to you.1
Evidently the Bishop intended to have a ferial as well as a
festival frontal.
Describing the frontals for the altar at Lichfield Cathedral
Church in 1668, the Bishop, Dr. Racket, writes:
In vellet, purple and azure, fiftie pounds worth from the excellent Ladie
Levison, to serve for a paraphront, a suffront, and carpet for the Altar.
From my Ladie Bagot, most rich pieces of gold and silke, and exquisite
imagery for two quishions, whose making up being added from a deuout aged
widow, and a poore one, Mrs. Hulkes, they are as beautifull as euer I saw.
Add to these, the most curious piece that I haue seen, of purple vellet, flowry
gold and silke, to bee placed in the paraphront aboue the quishion.2
The altar cloth given by an Archbishop of York, who died in
1691, deserves to be noticed on account of its colour.
Thomas Lamplugh D.D. ArchBishop of York, gave to the Church of
Thwing one larg Silver Cup double gilt with Gold, with a Cover and a
Chalice of the same, and to both the Cup and Chalice a convenient stifned
Case of red Leather with Clasps to keep them in. — He gave also a very
good large Cushion for the Pulpit, and a larg Pulpit Cloath lined, both of
very fine red Velvet and a Carpet of fine Orange coloured Sattin lined
with Silk for the Communion Table, and a Table Cloath of a very rich
Damask for the Communion and a fine linnen Cloath to cover the conse
crated Elements of the same Damask.3
Dr. Comber, the Dean of Durham, records in his papers
that an unknown person sent a noble crimson velvet cloth with rich
embroidery and gold fringe to adorn the altar of the cathedral.4
Queen Mary the Second, between 1689 and 1694, gave to the
altar of Christchurch Canterbury a frontal of silver stuff and purple
flowered velvet :
The altar was furnished with a pane of the figured velvet and a pane of
gold stuff, flowered with silver, and the Archbishop's throne with plain
velvet. The figure for both was a ruffled f one, of gold, silver, and purple,
which alone cost
1 Bodleian Library, Tanner MS. 44, fo. 42.
2 ibid. 44, fo. 66. Letter from Dr. Racket to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dec.
12, 1668.
3 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1898, vol.
iv. p. 245.
4 Memoirs . . . of Thomas Comber, D.D. ed. by Thomas Comber, London,
Richardson, 1799, p. 288.
5 G. S. [George Smith], Chronological History of Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury,
1883, p. 330.
138 ALTAR FRONT ALS.
Much about the same time, "in the present age" says the
writer,
Mistress Dorothy Seymour gave to the Parish-Church of Berry-
Pomeroy aforesaid, a very fair Altar-/%%£, with a New Communion-Table, a
rich Carpet to cover it, carv'd or turrid Rails to enclose it, a large gilded
Chalice, with other things of Value ; and also new laid the Floor of the
Chancel throughout with squared Stones. We have another example of a
like Piety, in Totnes near adjoining ; where Mr. Richard Langdon, Mer
chant, hath given lately an Hundred Pounds, in double gilt Plate for the
Communion Service of that Church, and a rich Crimson Velvet Carpet, with
deep Gold Fringe for the Communion- Table there. The like whereunto
near to the same Value, was done for the Parish- Church of Dartmouth in
this County by William Hayne, Esq ; lately deceased.1
Nor was this " man millinery," as it is contemptuously called,
limited to Queens and Bishops and Ladies.
Here [Trusley, Derbyshire], too, in cases against the wall, are the
remains of a once beautiful altar-frontal of blue cloth, with the arms and
initials of William Coke and his wife Catherine Ballidon. . . . This altar-
cloth was in use up to 1860, when it was removed and carelessly crumpled
up at the bottom of the parish chest, because the then rector had con
scientious scruples as to using a frontal with heraldic embellishments.2
It was one of the foibles of the ecclesiological movement in the
nineteenth century to dismiss the use of heraldry as savouring of
pride. A writer, not too cautious, denounces the squire, "the
parochial autocrat " ; for
his armorial bearings (the very essential hieroglyphic of the pomps of
this world which we renounce at Baptism) displace the emblems of our
hope and of our faith.3
I have heard, on good authority, of a much worse case in the
twentieth century; where a democratic parson chipped off the
squire's arms on a fifteenth century font. The squire, I fear from
good nature, did not, as he ought to have done, put the parson at
once into the ecclesiastical courts.
In the eighteenth century, a lady who had undertaken an altar
cloth for a clergyman's chapel apologises for the colour not being
green :
1 John Prince, The beauty of God's House, London, Freeman Collins and Samuel
Keble, 1701, p. 48.
2 J. Charles Cox, Athenceurn, 1907, September 28, p. 373.
3 G. A. Poole, Churches ; their Structure, Arrangement and Decoration, London,
1845, ch. vii. p. 73.
ALTAR CANDLESTICKS. 139
October 28, 1 740. I am glad the Chappie is done, and succeeds to your
mind ... 135 years in your chaple, and I conclude the old green Cloath
has been so too ... I hope this Crimson won't offend the Doctor Osborn.
He was a little outragious at the Colour. I unfortunately called it red,
and that is not so right for a Chaple. Is he reconciled to the Tapistry at
the Altar ? He is not sure if that does not favour a popish one.1
It will be noticed below in the directions for an oratory in Enter
into thy closet that the colour of the hanging is to be green.2
ALTAR CANDLESTICKS.
Candlesticks began to be set again on the altar soon after the
Restoration.
At Christchurch, the Metropolitical Church of the Province of
Canterbury, they had in 1667 altar candlesticks ; for a charge is
made for gilding one of them ; and " Candlesticks for the Altar "
go on as far as the Inventories of the eighteenth century reach.3
The charge for two large wax tapers for the Altar was allowed in
the eighteenth century every winter, and the candles must have been
lit.4 The candlesticks were still there in Hasted's time.5 He pub
lished in 1799. And indeed they were there at the end of the
nineteenth century when the materials for the Inventories of Christ-
church Canterbury were being collected.
At York two pair of altar candlesticks were given soon after the
Restoration. One pair by Dr. Sancroft who was Dean of York in
1664, but the candlesticks were made in 1662 ; and the other pair
was given by " Lady Mary Beaumont" in 1673.
These were still in use in 1912 at the high altar and the altar
in the Lady chapel.6
At Chester cathedral two candlesticks were given to the altar in
I662.7
The Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. William Fuller, writing on Oct. 27,
1 Mrs. Osborn, Political and Social Letters of a Lady of the Eighteenth Century,
1721-1771, Griffith and Farran, [1890 ?], p. 72.
2 See below, p. 157.
3 J. Wickham Legg and W. H. St. John Hope, Inventories of Christchurch Canter
bury, Constables, 1902, pp. 272, 311, 316.
4 ibid. p. 313.
5 Edward Hasted, History . . . of Kent, Canterbury, Simmons and Kirkby, 1799,
vol. iv. p. 526, note a.
6T. M. Fallow and H. B. McCall, Yorkshire Church Plate, Leeds, Yorkshire
Archaeological Society, 1912, p. 4.
7 T. Stanley Ball, Church Plate of the City of Chester, Sherratt and Hughes, 1907,
p. 24.
140 ALTAR CANDLESTICKS.
1668 to Dr. Sancroft, Dean of St. Paul's, asks him to buy for the
altar at Lincoln a pair of better candlesticks than what they have :
They have a pittifull paire of ordinary brasse Candlesticks upon the
Altar ; which I am ashamed to see and can indure no longer. Therefore
I will give them a paire of faire Candlesticks. Truly, Deane, my purse is
empty : and I cannot doe what I would. But I find in the Inventory of
the Church Utensills, before they were Imbezild, a paire of copper Candle
sticks guilt. Why may I not give the like : if you approve of it. Then I
must intreate you to bespeake them, accordingly. I would have them
great and plaine, and double guilt. Pray inquire what such a paire will
cost.1
A Bishop of Ossory, having been Dean of Christchurch Dublin,
feared lest any Church money should remain in his hands at his
death ; and therefore on October 19, 1677
he bequeathed to the Dean and Chapter thereof, 200!. to buy a pair of
large Silver Candlesticks gilt, and other Utensils for the Use of the Altar.2
There is an interesting receipt given on behalf of the Bishop of
Durham, by the Dean, for certain pieces of gilt plate lent on loan
which seemed to have been considered so necessary that the Bishop
was constrained to borrow them when the plate belonging to the
Cathedral could not be had. They are these :
One basan, twoe candle-sticks, twoe flagons, twoe chalaces, and twoe
pattens.3
The paper is not dated but it was most likely written between
1686 and 1689.
A Roman Catholic priest, Bassett, writing in 1704 under the
pretence of being a Minister of the Church of England, and speak
ing of the furniture of the altar, says : " Yea, we have great Candles
too".4
In 1712 Mrs. Elinor James gave a quantity of plate for use at
the altar of St. Benedict, Paul's Wharf, and amongst other pieces
was "a pair of embossed candlesticks and sockets ".5 To show how
little negative evidence may be trusted, nothing is said of these by
James Paterson in I7I4.6
1 Bodleian Library, Tanner MS. 44, f. 42.
zThe whole Works of Sir James Ware concerning Ireland, ed. Walter Harris,
Dublin, Bell and Fleming, 1764, vol. i. p. 428.
3 Miscellanea, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 218.
4 Essay towards a proposal for Catholick Communion, ch. xvi. quest, ii. 1704.
5J. P. Malcolm, Londiniiim Redivivum, 1803, vol. ii. p. 471.
6 James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Taylor, 1714, p. 44.
ALTAR CANDLESTICKS. 141
Cesar de Saussure in his account of Anglican churches in the
reigns of King George the First and King George the Second says :
In all the churches the altars are covered with a velvet or damask
silk cloth ; candlesticks are placed upon them.1
The Ecclesiologist records that at St. Mary's, Bruton, Somerset
shire the candlesticks are of silver and bear the legend : " The gift
of Mr. John Gilbert to Bruton Church, 1744". Also seven otner
instances of candlesticks on the altar ; but it is not said if they
were the gift of persons within our period.2
Messrs. J. Charles Cox and Alfred Harvey give a number of
instances of altar candlesticks now in use in English parish
churches. I will only mention those which have the hall mark of a
post-restoration year, and which, in some likelihood, were acquired
by the church after that year. During our period there are : Buck-
land, Surrey, 1691 ; Harthill, Yorkshire, 1675 ; Hatton, Warwick
shire, 1683; St. Augustine, Norwich, temp. Carol. II.; Moseley,
Leicestershire, 1662 ; St. Anne's Soho, 1722 ; Swithland, Leicester
shire, 1701 ; St. Mary's Shrewsbury given between 1716 and 1727
by Lady Abigail Yeomans "for the use of the Communion ".3
In 1786 two pair of altar candlesticks were stolen from Magdalen
College Chapel, Oxford. In the following year a pair was presented
by the President, Dr. George Home, to replace those stolen.4
In truth, candlesticks on the altar must have been so usual that
this fact was brought in as a support to the contention that painted
windows and pictures must also be allowed.
Whoever brings the Authority of Q. Elizabeth's Injunctions and
Homilies against the Window in St. Margaret 's, will first remove Candle
sticks from the Altars in Cathedrals ; not that the Editor of these Papers
has the least Objection to their standing there, or on the Altars in any paro
chial Church.5
Malcolm in 1 803 mentions " two remarkably handsome candle
sticks" on the altar at All Hallows Barking.6 Also at St. Bar
tholomew Broad Street or Exchange, " the table is of porphyry,
1 See above, in this chapter, p. 126.
2 Ecclesiologist, Cambridge, Stevenson, 1844, vol. iii. p. 160.
3 J. Charles Cox and Alfred Harvey, English Church Furniture, Methuen, about
1907, p. 326.
4 J. R. Bloxam, Register of the Presidents . . . of St. Mary Magdalen College,
Oxford, Parker, 1857, vol. ii. pp. clxxxiv-clxxxv.
5 [Thomas Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster,] The Ornaments of Churches con
sidered, Oxford, Jackson, 1761, p. 134, n.
6 J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, 1803, vol. ii. p. 421.
142 ALTAR CANDLESTICKS.
with a step for candlesticks of the same material, supported by richly
carved and gilt feet ".1 At St. Clement Danes they had also the
table of porphyry with " two steps for candlesticks on it 'V2 At
St. Botolph Aldersgate the Holy Table " supports two rich candle
sticks".3
In a will made on November 19, 1831 Mrs. Quilliam directs as
follows :
I leave to the chaplains and wardens (for the time being) of St. Mary's
Chapel in Castletown aforesaid my two best silver chased Candlesticks to
and for the use of the said Chapel for ever and to be placed therein on the
Communion Table.4
Their height is lof inches. Mrs. Quilliam also bequeathed
another pair exactly similar and of the same date (1770-71) to the
chapel of King William's College. It is an excellent example,
much to be commended, of the conversion of good domestic ma
terials to church uses.
No instance in our period has been met with of more than two
lights on the altar. Thus the mediaeval custom of two lights only
was carefully preserved until our time of decadence in the nineteenth
century, when six large candles, or little candles in drawing room
sconces began to be set on the altar.
When I was at Exeter in April 1 894, I was told by a responsible
officer of the chapter library with a certain amount of distress, that
things were so low before the present dean was appointed that the
altar candlesticks were only put on for a celebration of the Eucharist,
and taken off directly after. I do not know who the dean was in
1 894, but if what I was told prove exact, he certainly destroyed a
very ancient and desirable custom. It was a survival of a distant
time when there were no candles on the altar but carried only in the
hands of the clerks ; brought in by them, and taken away by them
as soon as the service was over. Doubtless the change at Exeter
was made with intention of promoting the cause of progress and de-
velopement, and credit should be given for good intentions, even if
not altogether successful.
Something similar, it may be inferred, is spoken of by Hasted
as happening at Canterbury ; the candlesticks were set upon the
1 J. P. Malcolm, Londiniunt Redivivum, London, 1803, v°l- »• P- 42^»
zibid. vol. iii. p. 395. 3ibid. vol. ii. p. 550.
4 E. Alfred Jones, The old Church Plate of the Isle of Man, London, Bemrose,
1907, p. 28.
ALTAR CANDLESTICKS. 143
altar with the other plate when there was a celebration of the
Eucharist.1 Another instance of a like practice, and in a parish
church, was put on record in pleadings before the ecclesiastical courts
about 1855. At Ham in Staffordshire where they had daily service
in 1715,2
The Candlesticks are here put on the Altar on days when Holy Com
munion is administered ; an ancient custom. The former Incumbent, who
held the living 50 years, found the custom, and retained it.3
The opinion that two candlesticks on the altar were customary
and lawful appears quite at the end of our period.
Among other ornaments of the Church in use, in the 2d year of Edward
VI. there were two Lights appointed to be set upon the high Altar, as a
significant ceremony of the light which Christ's Gospel brought into the
world ; . . . These lights were continued in all the Queen's Chapels dur
ing her whole reign ; and in many Cathedral Churches, besides the Chapels
of divers noblemen, Bishops, and Colleges to this day.4
In the last sentence it may be supposed that the author speaks
of his own personal knowledge, and so with the authority of a con
temporary witness.
In 1892 Dr. Porter, the Master of Peterhouse, showed me the
arrangements in his chapel which were most likely those made at
the Restoration after the havoc that was wrought by William
Dowsing during the Rebellion,5 who would not have suffered
altar rails to remain ; and thus the present rails are almost
sure to be post-Restoration. There were no candlesticks on the
altar; but the western angles of the rectangular rails enclosing
the altar carried two round wooden tables on tripods, on which
stood the two candlesticks with prickets. The Master assured me
that, within his time, the candles had always been in that particular
place.
A similar arrangement may very likely have existed at Clare,
1 Edward Hasted, History . . . of Kent, Canterbury, Simmons and Kirkby, 1799,
vol. iv. p. 526.
2 See above in ch. iv. p. 98.
3 The Judgment of the Right Hon. Stephen Lushington . . . Westerton against
Liddell, edited by A. F. Bayford, London, Butterworths, about 1855, p. xxvi, Schedule
No. 2.
4 Thomas Pruen, Illustration of the Liturgy of the Church of England as to its
daily service, London, Rivington, 1820, vol. i. p. 206.
5 J. Wickham Legg, English Orders for consecrating churches in the seventeenth cen
tury, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1911, p. 350.
144 BRANCHES.
but the old order of things had been changed in the nineteenth
century.
BRANCHES.
Branches with candles hung from the ceiling were very frequent
in cathedral and parish churches, but they appear to have been
brought in merely for decoration, or perhaps for giving light, with
out any ritual purpose. They were disliked by the puritans be
cause they gave dignity and beauty to the house of God. In 1714
according to James Paterson's Pietas Londinensis there were sixteen
churches in London furnished with branches, but it is quite possible
this may be an underestimate.
If one turns over the pages of the later editions, published in
the eighteenth century, of Stow's Survey one may often notice the
appearance of branches as part of the ornaments of London churches.
At the Collegiate Church of Manchester, the foundation of King
Charles the Martyr in 1635, we are told that
Suspended from the chancel roof, are two brass candelabras, each con
taining twelve branches ; on the one is inscribed, " The Original Gift of
Chadwick, A.D. 1696. Renewed By the Warden and Fellows, A.D.
1768: " and on the other, "The Gift of Jeremiah Bower, Manchester,
Haberdasher of Hats, September 29, 1745." x
These branches are still filled with candles and lighted during
the Twelve Days of Christmas.2
On Feb. 17, Sunday, 1722-3 Hearne writes :
About a Month or six Weeks since was put up in St. Peter's Church,
in the East, Oxon. a very handsome Branch for Lights. And much about
the same time were renewed the Images of St. Peter and St. Paul over the
Porch Door of the same Church.8
Three branches had been presented at different times during
our period to Christchurch Canterbury by Sir Anthony Aucher,
Dr. Shuckford, and Dr. Tenison.4
At Clinok in Wales, Dr. Richard Pococke, an Irish bishop,
observed in 1756 :
1 [S. Hibbert,] History of the Foundations in Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834,
vol. ii. p. 285. For statutes of King Charles, see vol. i. p. 152.
2 See below, ch. vii. p. 209.
3 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol.
viii. p. 46.
4 J. Wickham Legg andW. H. St. John Hope, Inventories of Christchurch Canter
bury, Westminster, Constables, 1902, p. 327.
CROSSES, PICTURES, ETC. 145
The ancient rood-loft is standing, and they have a wooden branch to
illuminate their church at their early devotions on Christinas day, which is
a custom that prevails in most parts of North Wales.1
It is recorded of Dr. George Berkeley, the son of the celebrated
Bishop, that he laid out the money received by him for temporary
duty in " purchasing some ornament for the house of God ; — such
as an handsome altar cloth, chandeliers, &c." 2
THE USE OF CROSSES, PICTURES, ETC.
Dr. Tenison, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, in a weighty
passage, recommends the use of devotional pictures, and of the
Cross. His remarks are the more noticeable because of the favour
which he showed to Protestant Dissenters.
And yet to say with men who run into extremes, that Devotional
Pictures are no helps to excite memory and passion, is to forget that they
are called mute Poems ; to speak against common sense ; and to impute
less to a Crucifix than to the Tomb of our friend, or to a thread on our
finger. They may be useful as Monitors in a Christian Commonwealth
where their worship is plainly and frequently forbidden, and by all under
stood to be so prohibited. And it was high superstition in those who in
our late unhappy Revolutions, defaced such Pictures and brake down such
Crosses as Authority had suffered to remain entire, whilst it forbad the
worship of them ; and was in that particular so well obeyed that none of
them (it may be) ever knew one man of the Communion of the Church of
England to have been prostrate before a Cross, and in that posture to have
spoken to it.3
Such a testimony in favour of the use of pictures and crosses
from a man of the studied moderation of Tenison is not to be put
aside. But an immense amount of Puritan prejudice had yet to be
overcome. A painted window over the altar, a picture serving as
a reredos, or even a plain cross might in the eighteenth century give
rise to much ill-will.
Dr. Fiddes, a writer of some reputation in his time but now
almost forgotten, doubted if all external acts of reverence towards
an image be forbidden by the second commandment :
it is not thought altogether so clear from any principles of natural
reason whether such outward acts of reverence be of themselves directly
1 The Travels through England of Dr. Richard Pocockc, ed. J. J. Cartwright,
Camden Society, 1889, vol. ii. p. 175.
2 George Berkeley, Sermons, London, Rivington, 1799, p. 150, note.
3 Thomas Tenison, Of Idolatry, London, Tyton, 1678, ch. xii. p. 279.
10
146 CROSSES, PICTURES, ETC.
sinful : Provided they terminate in the object represented by those images,
and that such object be in itself really adorable.1
Dr. Fiddes died in 1725. His works were much read by Dr.
Johnson.
Ten years after the Restoration Thomas Philipot published a
work in which he remarks :
So the sign of the Cross was put upon the Churches, to make it
known they were mark'd out and distinguish'd for God's service.2
It would be hardly worth mentioning that Dr. Joseph Butler,
afterwards Bishop of Durham, the immortal author of the Analogy,
had a cross over the altar in his episcopal chapel at Bristol, had not
this led to the statement that he died a papist.3 It cannot have
been that the use of the cross in connexion with churches was un
known. Dr. Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury, affirms that "most
of our churches have crosses upon them ".4 Even a crucifix was
recommended by William Law.5
In the Isle of Man, Kirk Andreas has a chalice made about
1685 with a crucifix engraved on it. Under it is: Andreas Cristif
famulus.6 The fop's chapel, to be spoken of below, had "many
crucifixes in it".7
Miss Austen speaks of a cross being given to a young lady to
wear round her neck.8
Malcolm who wrote in the first decade of the nineteenth century
may be appealed to for his evidence of the large number of pictures
then existing in London churches.9 And in the country, nothing is
more common than to find some sacred subject depicted in the parish
1 Richard Fiddes, Theologia Practica; or, the Second Part of a body of Divinity,
London, Bernard Lintot, 1720, Book III. ch. iii. p. 245.
2 Thomas Philipot, Antiquitas Theologica et Gentilis, London, Needham, 1670,
p. n.
3 An account of this strange accusation, not made until fifteen years after Butler's
death, and the immediate contradiction by the Bishop's closest friends, is given by Dr.
Samuel Halifax, Bishop of Gloucester, in the notes to a preface to his second edition
of Butler's works. (Works, Oxford University Press, 1836, vol. i. pp. xxxiii-xxxvii.)
4 ibid. p. xxxv.
5 William Law, A Serious Call to a devout and holy life, ch. xvi. London, Innys
and Richardson, 1753, p. 301.
6 E. Alfred Jones, The old church Plate of the Isle of Man, London, Bemrose,
1907, Plate VIII, No. i.
7 See below, p. 159, oh Oratories.
8 Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, ch. xxvi. (Macmillan, 1901, p. 228).
9 J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1802-7, i° f°ur volumes.
SEATS ABOUT THE ALTAR. 147
churches. Samuel Wale, an artist of note, was almost a specialist
for church paintings.1
SEATS ABOUT THE ALTAR.
One of the great sources of irritation to the early ecclesiologists
was the practice of setting a chair at each end of the altar, the oc
cupants of which faced the people. The early Gothic architects de
nounced this practice and made a great point of placing the seats
for the clergy in the presbytery on the south side only. But the
older designers had some precedent for what they did. There are
Italian churches which show chairs at the ends of the altar facing
the people, as at the cathedral churches of Sienna and Salerno. The
cathedral church of Naples has a seat at the south, or in more modern
language the epistle, end of the high altar, on which during the reading
of the lessons of Easter Even the celebrant sits. In our own West
minster Abbey there is shown a like seat in the Islip Roll.2 Dr.
Eager has also seen a seat in much the same place at Barcelona, and
elsewhere in Spain, and a clerk sitting upon it.3
The explanation of these varying positions of seats in the
presbytery is that early in history when most churches had apses,
and the altar stood on the chord of the apse, the seats for the clergy
ran all round the wall of the apse ; and the sedilia are but the re
mains of the most western of these, and the seats facing the people
the remains of those behind the altar.
The old three-decker, as it was irreverently called, of pulpit,
reading desk, and clerk's desk, was not a post-reformation invention.
There is just such an erection on the north side of the quire of St.
Mark's Venice, clearly mediaeval in date.
In 1821, a clergyman thus describes the state of his chancel :
When I came to my present parish, I found the chancel without any
rails at the east end round a communion table and the table standing in
the middle of the chancel. On inquiry, I found that the practice here
was, for all the communicants, at the time of a sacrament, to come into the
chancel, which is large, and has seats on each side of the entrance at the
west end, and which are continued towards half way on each side. . . . Be
fore the seats is a front, or desk, to kneel and lean against. The table
1 D.N.B. under Samuel Wale.
2 The Obituary Roll of John Islip, published by the Society oi Antiquaries of London,
Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. VII. part iv. plate xxii. 1906.
3 Reginald Eager, Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society, Harrisons,
1900, vol. iv. p. 113.
148 SEATS ABOUT THE ALTAR.
stands so that the minister can see all the communicants before him ; and,
when he administers the bread and wine, instead of their coming up to the
table he goes round to them.1
A London Curate at the beginning of the nineteenth century sets
forth his views in the following very interesting way :
Then respecting the interior of our churches ; there is no need to make
alterations for alteration's sake. Our ancestors, and their architects, were
very good judges of the proper arrangement of parts in the inside of churches.
It shall rarely happen that any good comes of moving the pulpit, desk, &c.
Least of all should they be placed in the middle aysle. The ALTAR, most
certainly, should ever be regarded as the sanctum sanctorum of a Christian
Church. Nothing should shut it out from the perspective of the building.
It should occupy the main point of light. Of late years, (is it because preaching
is preferred to praying ; nay to the solemnization of the most sacred Christian
Mysteries ?) the pulpit obstructs the view of the altar in many newly repaired
churches. In ancient churches, the pulpit is found on the north side of the
church, near the entrance of the chancel. In most of the fifty new churches,
in and about London, the pulpit and desk stand one on one side, and the
other on the other side of the middle aysle. But in churches which have
lately been improved, both pulpit and desk are placed, indecently, before the
Altar, 1 am sorry to observe, that the pulpit in St. Paul's Cathedral has
been moved from the spot where it was placed by Sir Christopher Wren.
It is now fixed, in the new fangled way, directly in the center, and com
pletely blotting out all view of the Altar from the entrance of the choir.
But this is not all. The litany desk keeps its old position — where the Priests
recite that impassioned, and very impressive part of our public service, the
litany, between the porch and the altar,* but when the officiating ministers
kneel at "the failed stool," (as it was anciently called,) they cannot see the
Altar / Their faces are within a few feet of the pulpit, which directly fronts
them.2
* No doubt the litany was ordered to be said in this place, because of Joel ii. 17.
" Let the Priests, the Ministers of the Lord, weep between the Porch and the Altar,
and let them say— spare thy people, O Lord, &c."
This expostulation might have been written by one of the early
Cambridge Camden Ecclesiologists. It shows, with them, the sense
that the altar is the chief feature and ornament of a church, not to be
obscured or overshadowed by the pulpit, a fashion that had set in
at the beginning of the nineteenth century. We may see in this
the influence of the evangelical movement. The Rev. Dr. B. J.
Kidd has pointed out to me that this making of the pulpit the
central point of a church is an unconscious following of the Manichees.
lMedicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 56.
2 A letter signed A London Curate, in The Orthodox Churchman's Magazine and
Revitw, London, 1804, vol. vi. p. 297.
CHANCEL SCREENS. 149
They dressed up a pulpit in the middle of a church, and then wor
shipped before it.1
LITANY DESK.
Another ornament may be noticed, the litany desk or litany
stool, of which, strange to say, it has been said that it was in the
eighteenth century a great rarity. As a matter of fact, such were
in use in most cathedral churches, such as Canterbury, Durham, and
Lincoln, besides St. Paul's ; and in parish churches, too : at St.
Giles', Durham, in 1683 the churchwardens paid money " for colour
ing the Litany Desk," sure sign that it was in use.2
The editions of Sparrow's Rationale published in the seventeenth
century have a frontispiece showing a priest in a short surplice kneel
ing at a desk in front of the altar, saying " Spare thy people O
Lord ". Also in several other frontispieces of devotional books
printed in the first half of our period, the same may be seen. At
Bledlow in 1783 they had apparently just bought a Litany Desk,
for the carriage is included in the accounts.3
It may be also noticed that the Priests who sing the Litany are
spoken of in the plural. Most of the Litany Desks of the eighteenth
century are for two Clerks ; and indeed at St. Paul's the statutes
require the Litany to be sung by two minor canons.4 But the
anomia of the last half of the nineteenth century has caused the
practice to be abandoned.
CHANCEL SCREENS.
After the Restoration they began again to build screens. A
very beautiful chancel screen of the Corinthian Order was put up at
Cruwys-Morchard, North Devon, at a time which Mr. Bligh Bond,
with good reason, calls Hanoverian. Even as late as 1808 at Mol-
1 quae causa esset quod Pa&cha Domini plerumque nulla, interdum a paucis tepid-
issima celebritate frequentaretur, nullis vigiliis, nullo prolixiore jejunio indicto Auditori-
bus, nullo denique festiviore apparatu ; cum vestrum bema, id est, diem quo Manichaeus
occisus est, quinque gradibus instructo tribunali et pretiosis linteis adornato, ac in
promptu posito et objecto adorantibus, magnis honoribus prosequamini : hoc ergo cum
quaererem, respondebatur ejus diem passionis celebrandum esse qui vere passus esset.
(St. Augustine, Contra Epistolam Manichaei, cap. viii. Migne, P.L. xlii. 179.)
2 Memorials of St. Giles's, Durham, Surtees Society, 1896, vol. xcv. p. 188.
3 See Appendix to this chapter, Bledlow Inventory, item 27, p. 161.
4 W. Sparrow Simpson, Registrum Statutorum et Consuetitdinum Eccles. Cathed.
Sancti Pauli Land, London, Nichols, 1873, p. 282.
150 SEPARATION OF THE SEXES.
land North Devon they set up a chancel screen with a tympanum
over it.1
At Clinok in 1756 Dr. Richard Pococke, the Irish bishop, notes :
The reading desk is within the skreen, and the minister comes out to
an elevated seat in the body of the church to read the lesson.2
The service was thus said within the chancel. Did the parish
clerk read the other lesson ?
SEPARATION OF THE SEXES.
It may be noted below 3 that at West Wickham the sexes were
separated. This was not so unusual. There is evidence of it in
1698 at St. James' Chapel, in the time of William the Third.
On Sunday last a rifle-barrelled pistol, loaded with balls, was found in
St. James's Chapel, after the king of England had left, and it was ob
served that there had been two strange-looking men present who, contrary
to the usual custom, had seated themselves among the ladies.4
And almost at the same date, Sir George Wheler speaks of the
separation of the sexes as being a custom in his day :
the promiscuous mixture of Men and Women together in our Assem
blies, is an Abuse crept in, not meant by our first Reformers, as is manifest
from the first C.P. Book of Edw. VI. and the Order in many Country
Churches to this day.5
And earlier than this, in 1689 the same Sir George Wheler
says:
I believe this Division of Sex was formerly in our Churches : For in
many Country Churches (where the Grandees have not deformed them,
by making some High and some Low, to be Tenements to their whole
Families) is yet to be seen not only Dextra et sinistra Pars virorum ; but
also the Right and Left hand Seats for the Women. The Seats for the
Men being next to the Chancel, and the Seats for the Women next from
the Middle-Doors to the Belfery ; with an Alley up to the Middle of the
Church ; and another Cross that to the North and South Doors.6
1 F. Bligh Bond, Mediaeval Screens and Rood-lofts (Transactions of the St. PaiiVs
Ecclesiological Society), Harrison, 1905, vol. v. p. 217.
2 The Travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright,
Camden Society, 1889, vol. ii. p. 175.
3 See below in this chapter, p. 153.
4 Tallard to Louis the Fourteenth, London, April 16, 1698. (P. Grimblot, Letters
of William III. and Louis XIV. London, Longmans, 1848, vol. i. p. 383.)
5 [George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery, 1698, p. 100.
6 George Wheler, An account of the Churches . . . of the Primitive Christians,
London, Clavell, 1689, p. 119.
CHURCH BUILDING. 1 5 1
CHURCH BUILDING.
The destruction of the city of London by fire in 1666 led,
necessarily, to a large amount of Church building in which Sir
Christopher Wren was most happily the chief actor. But this may
be thought not altogether voluntary. In 1711, Card well reports
that Convocation originated the idea of building fifty new churches
in the cities of London and Westminster,1 part of which scheme
was later on carried into effect.
A large number of churches, one in every parish, had been be
queathed to the eighteenth century by the middle ages, and until
the population began to increase there was no great need for new
buildings, and it was somewhat late in our period when the want
of new churches became urgent outside London. I have com
piled a list, imperfect no doubt, of churches and chapels consecrated
in the seventeenth century: of those from 1660 to 1700, putting
aside domestic and college chapels, there appear to be only ten
churches and chapels consecrated for public use.2
Convocation certainly looked for an increase in church building ;
for just before it was silenced it drew up a form for consecrating
churches and churchyards. This was published it would seem in
I7I5-3
When the era of the great Church building caused by the " late
dreadful fire " was over, Churchmen did not relapse into indiffer
ence as to their churches. There are two churches built in the first
half of the eighteenth century which are still among the glories of
London. One is St. Martin's in the Fields, the other is St. Mary
le Strand. And the men of the time were not niggardly, as may be
seen by the sums expended in building these new churches, equi
valent nowadays to more than double the amount.
The first stone of the new Church of St. Martin's in the Fields
was laid in 1722.
The expence attending the re-building amounted to 36,891!. IDS. 4d.
of which sum 33,450!. was raised under an Act of Parliament, by rates on
landlords of four fifths, and one fifth on tenants.4
1 Edw. Cardwell, Synodalia, Oxford, 1842, vol. ii. p. 827, note.
2 English Orders for Consecrating Churches in the Seventeenth Century, Henry
Bradshaw Society, 1911, p. 323.
3 Cardwell, op. cit. ii. 819.
4J. P. Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p. 194.
1 5 2 CHURCH BUILDING.
On St. Mary le Strand which was consecrated on January i,
1723 was expended £1 6,341 is. 2d.1
Another sign of a good feeling in Architecture in the middle of
the eighteenth century is given by All Saints, Derby. The church
needed to be rebuilt ; and the parishioners employed the
famous architect, James Gibbs, who designed St. Mary le Strand,
St. Martin's in the Fields, the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, and other
well-known buildings. A stone altar, and handsome screens of iron
work testified until 1873 to h*8 taste as well as to his knowledge;
but these, if they have not disappeared entirely, have been shame
fully mutilated by a clerical obscurantist.2
Of the church at Derby, Gibbs thus speaks :
The Church of Allhallows in Derby is a very large Fabrick, join'd to a
fine Gothick Steeple. It is the more beautiful for having no Galleries,
which, as well as Pews, clog up and spoil the Inside of Churches, and take
away from that right Proportion which they otherwise would have, and
are only justifiable as they are necessary. The plainness of this Building
makes it less expensive, and renders it more suitable to the old Steeple.
I have given two Plates of it.3
In fact there are three, plates 25, 26, 27, as one may be pleased
to note, being given more than promised.
In the middle of the eighteenth century there may be found a
preference for the old Christian architecture in place of that of the
Renascence. A journal tells us that
In St. Peter's one is convinced that it was built by great Princes : in
Westminster- Abbey one thinks not of the builder; the religion of the
place makes the first impression.4
This is not the only passage in writings of the eighteenth cen
tury in which a preference for the Gothic is expressed.
About 1752, Horace Walpole scoffs in this fashion at a new
church built by Lord Westmoreland at Mereworth :
The earl has built a new church. . . . The greatest absurdity is a
Doric frieze, between the triglyphs of which is the Jehovah, the I. H. S.
JJ. P. Malcolm. Londinium Redivivum, London, Nichols, 1807, vol. iv. p. 281.
2J. Charles Cox and W. H. St. John Hope, The Chronicles of the Collegiate
Church or Free Chapel of All Saints, Derby, London, Bemrose, 1881, plate ii. p.
227. See p. 8r for some account of the destruction in 1873.
8 James Gibbs, A book of Architecture, London, 1728, p. viii.
4 The London Register, March, 1762, p. 209.
CHURCH BUILDING. 1 53
and the dove . . . There is an entire window of painted-glass arms, chiefly
modern in the chapel, and another over the high altar.1
Here is an account of the cost and trouble taken to beautify
the church at Hagley about 1756 :
Sir George Lyttelton hasadorn'd the church in a most exquisite Gothic
taste, Mr. Miller's design. The chancel is entirely new ; the windows are
adorn'd on the sides and every part with Gothic ornaments in hewn stone,
and all the other parts of it is in stucco. . . . These [coats of arms] were
all done at the expence of the Dean of Exeter, who has also given a Persian
carpet as a covering for the communion table. The east window is entirely
of rich painted glass ... the Communion rail is of a Gothic design.2
A new church was built in Wolverhampton by Act of Parliament :
It was consecrated in 1761 and is dedicated to St. John. . . . The
whole is handsomely pewed and painted ; and the altar-piece, our Saviour
taken down from the cross, the work of a native genius, Mr. Joseph
Barney, now drawing master of the royal academy at Woolwich.3
This single instance suffices to dispose of the statement that not
one new church was built in England after the reign of King George
the Third had begun. Other cases will now be given, and the list
is by no means exhausted. Some writers seem to feel a sort of
satisfaction in inventing statements to the discredit of the eighteenth
century. Another new church, very handsome, is thus described :
The new church of West Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire was opened, on
an eminence two miles in height, where the old church stood. The pave
ment is Mosaic, and the roof stucco, ornamented with emblematic figures.
There are no pews, but seats covered with green cloth, and hassocks to
kneel on. The men sit on one side, and the women on the other. The
pulpit is built by itself, in which is a large spread eagle, standing on a ball,
both made of brass, and finely gilt. The reading desk, and the desk for
the clerk, both stand separate from each other. In the center of the
church stands a font of inimitable workmanship ; four carved doves seem to
be drinking out of it, one dove appears going up by the side, and a serpent
following it ; and the bason where the water is kept, with the cover to it is
of solid gold. Near the altar is a fine picture representing our Blessed
Saviour at his last Supper.4
1 Horace Walpole, Works, Robinson, 1798, vol. v. Letters to R. Bentley, Aug. 5,
1752, p. 268.
2 The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. by J. J. Cartwright,
Camden Society, 1889, vol. ii. p. 235.
3 Stebbing Shaw, The history and antiquities of Staffordshire, London, Nichols,
1801, vol. ii. p. 164.
4 Gentleman's Magazine, Historical Chronicle, July, 1763, p. 359.
154 FREE AND OPEN CHURCHES.
All Saints' Chapel, Lansdown Place, Bath, was built in 1794.
It is thus described :
It is in the Gothick stile, and is 64 feet long by 46 wide, within the
walls, exclusive of four recesses, with a fireplace in each. The gallery con
tinues all round the chapel, the front of which forms an oval, and is sup
ported by eight light Gothick pillars, which support also the roof. The
middle part of the ceiling is also an oval, and rises 6 feet higher than the
ceiling over the gallery ; is enriched with stucco ornaments and cove ribs
springing fan shape from each column. There are 12 large windows above
the gallery, in the tops of which are paintings on glass of the heads of the
Twelve Apostles, set round with variegated glass; — the window of the
altar has a transparent painting of the Lord's Supper.1
FREE AND OPEN CHURCHES.
This absence of pews at West Wickham 2 led to a sort of prema
ture Free and Open Church movement :
Lord Le Dispenser has lately shewn an excellent Example in this Re
spect, in the new Church of West Wickham, Bucks, which is worthy of
Imitation Instead of Pews, or inclosed seats, there are many Rows of
Forms and Benches, so that those who first come are first served.3
Later on it is recommended that all the pews at St. Stephen's
Coleman St. be burnt in Moorfields, and forms and benches substi
tuted.
Dr. Daubeny, the Archdeacon of Salisbury, built a church
called Christ Church, at Walcot near Bath, which was opened in
1798. He designed it for the poor, and all the seats were free and
open. It is incorrectly said to have been the first free and open
church in the country.4 The cases given immediately above are
some proof of the contrary.
Watson, the notorious absentee from his diocese, could yet see
what would be useful in London. In a letter to Mr. Wilberforce
dated April 1 , 1 800 he says :
The parish-churches of this metropolis are greatly too few . . . this
inconvenience is much augmented by the pews which have been erected in
them. What I would propose is — the building an additional number of new
churches, each on a large scale, in proper situations, which should have
1 The New Bath Guide, Bath, Cruttwell, 1796, p. 34.
2 See above, p. 153.
3 The Reformation of the Church of England, Reformed, London, 1765, p. n, n. The
writer is mistaken in thinking that pews came in after the Reformation.
4 D.N.B. sub voce Charles Daubeny.
DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES. 155
no appropriated seats, but, being furnished merely with benches, should be
open alike to the poor and rich of all parishes and of all countries.1
This was also the opinion of a clergyman in 1821 :
1 wish that all churches were made so warm that the reader need not
wish for a close pew, but that there were no pews at all, but merely rows of
seats, with low backs, or rails for the backs of the congregation to lean against,
and which might serve as the front to the row of seats behind it, and on to
which a sloping desk might be fixed, to hold prayer-books, or to support the
arms of the kneelers. There should be kneeling forms too throughout the
church. Those seats near the door should have close backs, higher than the
heads of the sitters, to keep off the wind. Pews are too often only a screen
to sitting, instead of kneeling, during the prayers, and to talking, or sleeping,
during the sermon.2
The behaviour of the Rattling Clubs in Church shows that square
pews were already built in I7J4-
It is needless to observe that the Gentlemen who every Sunday
have the hard Province of instructing these Wretches in a way they are in
no present Disposition to take, have a fixt Character for Learning and
Eloquence . . . whatever surpasses the narrow Limits of their [the Rattling
Clubs'] Theology, or is not suited to their Taste, they are all immediately
upon their Watch, fixing their Eyes upon each other, with as much Warmth
as our Gladiators of Hockley in the Hole, and waiting like them for a Hit ;
if one touches, all take Fire, and their Noddles instantly meet in the Centre
of the Pew ; then, as by beat of Drum, with exact Discipline, they rear up
into a full Length of Stature, and with odd Looks and Gesticulations confer
together.3
DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND THE DAILY SERVICE.
It is a matter for considerable regret that the private chapel,
where the whole of the divine service was often said every day, can
no longer be thought to exist. The writers of the eighteenth century
often give us a glimpse of the domestic chapel.4 It was indeed
sometimes consecrated, as was the chapel in Lord Clarendon's
house in Piccadilly.5 It may be looked upon as the usual accompani
ment of a squire's or nobleman's house. Richardson says :
^•Anecdotes of the life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, London, Cadell and
Davies, 1817, p. 341.
2 Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 32.
3 Spectator, No. 630, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 1714. 4 See below, p. 156.
5 J. Wickham Legg, English Orders for Consecrating Churches, Henry Bradshaw
Society, IQII, p. 324, Ixiv.
156 DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES.
To this convenient house belongs an elegant little chapel, neatly de
corated.1
Speaking of family prayers, the same writer says :
The chapel, now our congregation is large, will be the properest place.2
In 1746 there is advertised a ballad (Moore, price 6d.) on Ld.
D-n-r-1's "converting his Chapel into a Kitchen";3 an act plainly
attended by a certain amount of scandal.
Mr. Allworthy says, when told of the death of Mrs. Blifil :
he would have his sister deposited in his own chapel.4
The events of Tom Jones are supposed to be taking place in
1745-46.
At Wentworth Dr. Pococke noticed in 1750 that they had "a
handsome chapel, where they have prayers every morning between
ten and eleven ".5 So at another great nobleman's house : Dr.
Johnson found a chapel at Chatsworth in his journey into Wales in
I774-6
The daily prayers used to be read in the domestic chapel, either
by the chaplain, or the master of the house. In 1819, Washington
Irving, in his account of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, describes
" a small chapel in the old wing of the house ". He adds :
I afterwards understood that early morning service was read on every
Sunday and saint's day throughout the year either by Mr. Bracebridge or
by some member of his family. It was once almost universally the case at
the seats of the nobility and gentry of England, and it is much to be re
gretted that the custom is falling into neglect.7
ORATORIES.
Dr. Edward Wetenhall, afterwards Bishop of Killaloe, pub
lished about 1666 a book of prayers with the title Enter into thy
1 Samuel Richardson,, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Chapman and Hall,
1902, vol. vii. p. 32, in Letter vi.
2 ibid. p. 41.
3 British Magazine for the year 1746, vol. i. p. 85.
4 Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, Book V. ch. viii. in Works, ed.
by Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. vi. p. 266.
5 The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright, Cam-
den Society, 1888, vol. i. p. 66.
6 Samuel Johnson, A Diary of a Journey into North Wales in the year 1774, ed.
R. Duppa, London, R. Jennings, 1816, p. 14.
7 Washington Irving, The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, Dent, 1906,
Ch. Christmas Day, p. 35.
DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES. 157
closet, which had the honour of being attacked by Hoadly ; and at
the end of the first chapter of the first part he recommends those
who wished to lead a life close to the ways of holiness to have a
place convenient to retire into ; what he calls a closet, and we an
oratory. I give the greater part of his description for an account
of such at this time is rare, though the thing itself was not so very
unusual.
Now (it being supposed that my condition allows me so much choice,
as that I might have it so) my Closet would I have no unpleasant place, as
sweetly situated as any place of my house, that I might delight to be there
in ; and by no means a low or darksom room, but as high as I well could :
for that so it will be most remote from the noise, company, and disturb
ance . . .
The furniture of my Closet I would have a little more, than that of
Elisha's chamber, A Table, a Stool and a Candlestick : and instead of his
bed an hard Couch or great chair on which I might some times lean my
weary or aching head : But a Couch the reather for that sometimes I haply
might find it necessary to spend the whole night there, and might thereon
take some repose. To these I would add a Bible, a Common-prayer book,
two Paper books (which when filled must be supplyed by two others) and a
Pen and Ink. Another book or two (of which hereafter I may also see occa
sion) to add to these. A Chimney, against Winter's cold, to make the place
endurable, if need be, a whole night, would be no contemptible conveni
ence. If besides these, I there keep any thing, as Students do Books,
Gentlemen writings, and Ladies Medicines, 6°^. all these I would have
placed on one side, or at least, one side I would have free from them,
against which should either stand a table, or a Praying desk (that when
occasion should be I might lay a book or paper before me) and the wall
over such desk or table should be hung (if I were able to do it) with some
stuff, of one colour, (Green the best) to the end that when there kneeling
at my prayers, I might have in mine eye nothing to call away or divert
my thoughts.1
Henry Cornwaleys, complaining of the few who come to church
on a week day, gives this advice on Saturday night :
Let them repair to their private Oratory ; Let them enter into their
Closets.2
Lady Maynard, whom Ken directed, spent, he tells us, the best
part of her time in her oratory.
1 [Edward Wetenhall,] Enter into thy closet : or, a Method and Order for Private
Devotion, 4th ed. London, Martyn, 1672, Part I. ch. ii. p. 5. The first edition is said
to have appeared in 1666.
2H[enry] C[ornwaleys], The Country-Curate's Advice to his Parishioners, London,
Robinson, 1693, P- 8.
158 DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES.
Her oratory was the place, where she principally resided, and where
she was most at home.1
In the same way Sir George Wheler gives directions for a private
chapel or oratory ; and, in cases where a special place cannot be re
served, for the arrangement of a room used for domestic purposes.
It is very Decent to adorn the place we worship God in, with such
decent and proper Ornaments, as are useful for the Service we are about,
or any way tend to the Edification of those present, or that may express
Reverence and Respect to so great a Guest, as then we Receive and En
tertain.
Which consists not in great Pomp and Splendor, but Neatness ; in con
venient and edifying Ornaments, with cleanliness. As a decent Desk or
Table, to read the Word of God, and Pray on, set in the most convenient
and respectable Place ; then to have convenient Seats set in com[e]ly Order
for all present. If the Room be necessarily used about Domestick oc
casions, to have all the Furniture put in due Order, and not lying in un
seemly confusion, is no more than a good Housewife would do to receive
her ordinary Neighbours. If it be adorn'd with any Pictures, I would have
them such as represent some profitable History out of the Old or New Testa
ment ; or Sufferings of the Martyrs. But not as the objects of our Devo
tion, but such as may teach us some Moral or Religious Virtue, in the
intervals of it.2
Thus Private Oratories were not unknown in this age. Swift
is said to have regularly used such :
The place which he occupied as an oratory was a small closet, in which,
when his situation required to be in some degree watched, he was daily
observed to pray with great devotion.3
William Law recommends the pious to have an oratory.
To proceed ; if you was to use yourself (as far as you can) to pray
always in the same place ; if you was to reserve that place for devotion, and
not allow yourself to do any thing common in it ; if you was never to be
there yourself, but in times of devotion ; if any little room, (or if that can
not be) if any particular part of a room was thus used, this kind of conse
cration of it, as a place holy unto God, would have an effect upon your
mind, and dispose you to such tempers as would very much assist your
devotion. For by having a place thus sacred in your room^ it would in
some measure resemble a chapel or house of God.4
In Mrs. Delany's diary we read on November 17, 1750:
1 Thomas Ken, Sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Hon. The Lady
Margaret Mainard, in Prose Works, ed. J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 130.
2 [George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery, 1698, p. 98.
3 The works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. i. p. 396.
4 William Law, A serious call to a devout and holy life, ch. xiv. London, Innys
and Richardson, 1753, p. 244.
DOMESTIC CHAPELS AND ORATORIES. 159
I have begun a large Madonna and Child for the chapel which is a
great undertaking.1
In Amelia Dr. Harrison (for in the eighteenth century nearly
all beneficed clergymen have taken a doctor's degree, if we trust
the contemporary writers) says to a soldier who has just acquitted
himself very well in the Doctor's eyes :
" Sir " said he " if I knew half a dozen such instances in the army, the
painter should put red liveries upon all the saints in my closet." '
The pictures of the saints, then, were hung up in the oratories
of the clergy at this time.
In 1768 there is a description by Mrs. Delany of a fop's chapel :
I was a little provoked at his chapel, which is within his dressing room.
It is not above eight feet square, or rather an octagon ; it is an exact re
presentation of a popish chapel expensively decorated . . . There are
many crucifixes in it, ivory figures of saints, crowns, and crosses set with
sapphire.3
It would seem that there were spikes (as Dr. Bright of Christ-
church used to call them) in 1768.
Johnson looked upon the parish church as a proper place for
private devotion. At Harwich, in 1763, about August 6, when on
his road to Utrecht, Boswell writes :
We went and looked at the church, and having gone into it and walked
up to the altar, Johnson, whose piety was constant and fervent, sent me
to my knees, saying, ' Now that you are going to leave your native country,
recommend yourself to the protection of your Creator and Redeemer '.
1 Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville Mrs. Delany, London,
Bentley, 1861, First Series, vol. ii. p. 616.
2 Henry Fielding, Amelia, Book II. ch. iv. in Works, ed. Murphy and Browne,
Bickers, 1871, vol. viii. p. 223.
3 Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville Mrs. Delany, London,
Bentley, 1862, Second Series, vol. i. p. 177, Oct. 10, 1768.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V.
[TRANSCRIPT FROM THE WRITINGS IN THE CUSTODY OF THE VICAR
AND CHURCHWARDENS OF BLEDLOW.]
AN INVENTORY OF UTENSILS, BOOKS, VESTMENTS, ORNAMENTS, ETC. IN THE
PARISH CHURCH OF BLEDLOW IN THE COUNTY OF BUCKS 1783.
[i.] A Communion Table
[a.] An Altar Pall of Green Cloth bordered with silk fringe
[3.] A Silk Cushion with Gold Tassels
[4.] A Communion service book in 8vo. bound in Red Turkey,
and ornamented with a Glory and Ribbons tipped with Gold Fringe
[5.] A Paste-Board with the Consecration Prayer, bordered with Purple
Ribbon
[6.] An Altar Piece of Mahogany with a painting of a Dead Christ by
Wale, in a gilt frame, under a pediment ornamented with a Glory and
finished with 3 Sham Tepers f in Candlesticks carved and gilt.
[7.] Two Side-Boards in Niches, one in the South, and the other in the
North wall.
[8.] A Damask linen Table Cloth
[9.] Two Damask Napkins and two small Cambric Altar-Towels
[10.] Two brown fustian pieces for the sideboards with' fine Dimity
Coverings fronted with pendent borders of Muslin
[n.] A Silver Chalice and Paten and a small silver straining spoon
[12.] A Silver Flagon, given by Mr. Blanks, and a Pint Glass-decanter
and stopper
[13.] A Silver Plate given by Mr. Crosse
[14.] A Water-Glass, Bottle and Stopper, to rinse the Vessels after the
Eucharistic Service
[15.] A Long Surplice, A Bachelor's and Master's Hood
[16.] A Short Surplice for Funerals
[17.] An Alb
[18.] A Surplice without Sleeves, intended for the Clerk.
[19.] A Mahogany Stool covered with Silk Moreen, brass-nailed.
[20.] A Mahogany three leg'd Candlestick with a brass Socket and
Taper for funeral Service
160
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. 161
[2 1 .] Two square Mats and two long ditto and a long Hair cloth and
two l Oval Matt
[22.] Three kneeling boards of the length of the Septum, covered with
red Leather.
[23.] 2 A Folio Bible in 2 Vols2
[24.] Four folio Common Prayer books, the book of Homilies, and
Fox's Martyrs 3 Vols
[25.] A Deal Pulpit and Canopy, an hour Glass, and Pulpit-Cloth
Fringed
[26.] A Reading Desk with a Cloth Cushion, and Kneeling Stool.
[27.] A Wainscot Litany Desk with Silk Covering a Stool and Cushion
and Litany Book in Qrto
[28.] An Oak Bier, and a Funeral Pall of black Cloth bordered with
white Crape
[29.] A Paste-board with the funeral service bordered with black Ribbon
[30.] A Chest with three Locks for the Parish Writings
[31.] A long Box 3 of Oak 3 for the burying pall
[32.] A Stand for the support of ditto, and both united were used as a
reading Desk for the Martyrology 4 till displaced by the erecting of a new
Pew at the upper end of the South Ayle. The stand is removed into the
Vestry-Room.
[33.] A Wooden Horse (instead of a better conveniency) for the surplice
and hood
[34.] A Long Pole and brush, a hand brush dusting 5 pan, and Hair-
broom
[35.] Hassocks No. 129. a fresh supply is order'd
[36.] A Collecting Box, a Looking Glass, Almanac-frame and 2 Ex
tinguishers
[37.] A Church Clock
[38.] A Ring of five Bells
[39.] A Small Bell communicating with the Vestry to notify the
Minister's arrival there to the persons in the belfry
[40.] A Small Chain and Padlock to secure the Septum
[41.] A Font of Stone, lined with lead, having 6 a hole at the bottom to
convey the water into a Cavity beneath
[42.] A Grate in the Chimney of the Vestry-room
[43.] The Vestry- Room has a floor of Deal over a deep7 Cavity almost
filled with loose flints to prevent the rising of the Damps ; And the Walls,
to a proper height, are batten 'd and plaister'd
The Room being much pestered with Bats, it is intended to ceil it in
the course of the summer
1 Two is interlined over an struck out. 2'2 interlined.
'-3 interlined. * jn tfas word Martyrology the ro is interlined.
5 dusting written over an erasure. 6 written over erasure. ''interlined.
II
162 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V.
[44.] A Long and short ladder are intended to be bought for the
purpose of getting upon the Roofs there being no access to them by a Stair-
Case i
[On the back is written in the same hand a list of the parish charities
which is signed by the Vicar and churchwardens and also by the Archdeacon
as exhibited before him. It begins with the following sentence :]
" The following is an Account of the Charities and Benefactions to the
Parish of Bledlow." [The account ends with these signatures :]
Jo Davey Vicar
Wardens
1 9th May 1783
Exhibited before me
Luke Heslop Archdn.
[Here ends the long Inventory ; and there follow some Church wardens'
accounts with a short recension of the long Inventory.]
Church wardens' accounts
Brought on 16. n. 8
By William Bigg's Disbursements viz.
For charges at a Visitation 28 May 1782 0.13.6
Do at a Visitation 23 Octr following o. 12. 6
For a bonfire on the 5 November o. 6. o
For three head of vermin @ ^d o. i. o
For 13 Dozen of Sparrows @ $d per dozen o. 3. 3
For 9 Dozen of Old Ditto @ 6d o. 4. 6
2. oo. o
1 8. 12. 5
For Parchment and Making out two Inventories of the Books
Utensils and Ornaments belonging to the Church and
Exhibited at the parochial Visitation of the Revd. and
Worshipful Mr. Archdeacon Heslop, holden here the 1 9th
of May 1 783. One of the Inventories signed by the Vicar
and Churchwardens was deliver'd in at the Court and
the other is to remain among the Parish writings. o. 17.^ o
18. 19. 5.
1 The following paragraphs are written in pencil below the last entry.
A Painted iron Register Chest as per Act 52d Geo. III.
A Large strong Deal Parish Chest containing the Award of Inclosure Date 1812.
A pencilled cross has been made, possibly by the same hand, in the margin of the
following items : 5. 10. 14. 16. 17. 18. 19. 27. and against two small cambric Altar-
Towels in 9. a small silver straining spoon in n. a Pint Glass-decanter and stopper in
12. and an hour Glass in 25.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V. 163
[The verso of this leaf is blank]
Brought on £i%- 19. 5.
A List of Articles included in the Inventory, many of
which had been long in use, and others were provided
against the Visitation.
[3.] A Silk Cushion with Gold Tassels for the Altar o. 10. o
[4.] An Altar-service book bound in Red Turkey o. 10. o
[5.] A Paste-board with the Consecration prayer bor
dered with purple Ribbond o. i. 6
[9.] Two Cambric Altar-Towels o. 2. 6
[10.] Two Fustian and two Dimity Pieces with Muslin
frontals for the side boards o. 5. o
[IT.] A Silver straining spoon o. 3. o
[12.] A Glass pint decanter and stopper in the Flaggon o. 2. o
[14.] A Small oblong Water-bottle and stopper and a
Water-Glass o. 3. o
[16. 17. 1 8.] An Alb, a short surplice for funerelsf and
another for the Clark without Sleaves o. 15. o
[19.] A Mahogany stool cover'd with Moreen o. 16. 6
[21.] Two Square Mats and two Oval ditto o. 3. 10
Five Yards of Yard wide ditto and 5 Yards of half
yard o. io. o
[2 1 .] Six Yards of Hair Cloth o. 7. 6
[36.] Two Extinguishers 0< Oi 5
[27.] A Litany Desk and Carriage1 i. 5. g
24. 9. 3.
[The verso of this leaf is blank]
Brought on 24> g 3
[25.] An hour glass and small Looking Glass o. 2. 8
[36.] An Almanac frame 0> z o
[42.] A grate in the Chimney of the Vestry Room o. 5. 6
[39.] A Small Bell and Wire communicating with the
Belfry to notify to the Ringer's the minister's arrival o. 3. 6
[20.] A Mahogany three leg'd Candlestick with a brass
Socket for funeral Service Ot « ~
[29.] A Pasteboard with the funeral Service border'd
with Black Ribbon
25. io. ii
1 written over\ erasure.
II
CHAPTER VI.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS AT CHURCH AND AT HOME.
BAPTISM.
IN the early part of our period there is evidence that baptism with
in a few hours after birth was a custom approved by many. It
agrees with the rubric in the Prayer Book that the Curates of every
Parish shall often admonish the people that they defer not the Baptism
of their Children longer than the first or second Sunday next after
their birth. Accordingly we find that the Duke of York's son,1
born to him on September 14, 1667, was baptized the same day.2
So earlier, in 1661 Pepys notes that a child was born on May 26,
and baptized on May 29; and on Feb. 20, 1665-66 he goes to
the christening of Capt. Ferrers' child born the day before. On
July 12, 1668 he notes the birth and christening the same day of
Mrs. Michell's baby. Mrs. Godolphin's son was born on a Tuesday,
September 3, 1678, and was baptized on the following Thursday.3
On May 20, 1669 Evelyn's daughter, Susannah, was born, and
baptized on the 2 5th. On March I, 1681-2 his second grandchild
"was born and christen'd the next day"; on June 28, 1683 was
born a grand-daughter
and christened by the name of Martha Maria, our Vicar officiating. I
pray God blesse her and may she choose the better part.
Addison was born and christened the same day, May the first,
1 The following note may serve to show how one of the sacraments was neglected
by the Puritans before the Restoration.
" Mr. Graunt observes that the number of christenings in 1660 was greater than
anie three yeers foregoing." (Diary of the Rev. John Ward . . . extending from
1648 to 1679, ed. by Charles Severn, London, Colburn, 1839, p. 162. It is not a diary so
much as a memorandum book.) The disappearance of the Eucharist under the Common
wealth has been spoken of at the beginning of the second chapter.
2 British Museum, MS. Add. 10,117, fo. 210.
3 The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888,
p. 142.
164
BAPTISM. 165
1672, by the name of Joseph.1 A son of Dr. Comber, Dean of
Durham, was born on November 26, and baptized on Dec. 4, i688.2
Christopher, son of Christopher Wood, was born on Dec. 15,
1666, and was baptized on the 2ist.3
In 1677,
Nov. yth. The Duchesse of York was safely delivered of a son. . . .
Twas christen'd the next day in the evening by the Bishop of Durham.4
George Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, was born on January 1 8,
1683-4, and baptized the same day.5 John Byrom was born and
baptized the same day.6 Luke Heslop, Archdeacon of Bucking
ham, was born and baptized on St. Luke's day, I738.7,
In 1747 a child immediately after the Caesarian extraction was
christened by the name of Jonah and it was declared likely to live.8
Sir Charles Grandison delays the christening for a few days
because he was anxious that it should be performed at church.
" Shall it not be performed when it can, as the church directs ; the
child in full health?"9 It was observed about 1730 that in the
Isle of Man the people always brought their children to the church
to be baptized, no matter how far off they lived.10
On the other hand, Mrs. Montagu's boy was born on May II,
1743, but not baptized till "the latter end of next week," after
June 4.11
The Prince of Wales, afterwards King George the Fourth, was
born on August 12, 1762, but not baptized until September i8.12
And towards the end of our period, practice had become very lax,
and so continues.
1 Samuel Johnson, Life of Addison, in Works, Edinburgh, 1806, vol. xii. p. i.
2 Memoirs of . . . Thomas Comber, D.D. ed. Thomas Comber, London, 1799,
p. 266.
3 Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society,
1892, vol. ii. p. 95.
4 Diary of Dr. Edward Lake, ed. by George Percy Elliott, Camden Society, 1846,
p. 7.
5 D.N.B. under George Lavington.
6 J. Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, John Murray, 1892, under Byrom.
7 D.N.B. under Luke Heslop.
8 Manchester Magazine, July 28, 1747.
9 Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Chapman and Hall,
1902, vol. vii. p. 20, Letter v.
10 George Waldron, A Description of the Isle of Man, contained in Compleat Works,
no place or name, 1731, second pagination, p. 170.
11 Elizabeth Montagu the Queen of the Blue-stockings, ed. Emily J. Climenson,
Murray, 1906, vol. i. p. 148.
u Annual Register for 1762, fifth ed. Dodsley, Chronicle, pp. 96-98.
1 66 BAPTISM.
The Puritans greatly disliked baptism in the old stone font,
which they looked upon as polluted by the superstitious papistical
baptism of the middle ages. A return to the use of the old font
was insisted upon by the canons of 1603, and the use of basons
forbidden by exclusion.1
It is worth noting that at Wylie, a parish in Wiltshire, they had
in 1781
A Silver Bason for Baptisms.'2
It would seem safe to assume that the silver bason is to hold
the water in which the child is to be baptized. A moveable font is
often seen in the East of silver, and was formerly in use in the West
for the children of great persons. There was a silver font at Canter
bury for the children of the King of England and a brazen font at
Edinburgh for the children of the King of Scots.3 The royal family
of England are still baptized in a special silver vessel.
At St. George's Windsor a great deal of the plate was stolen
in 1642 by a Captain Fogg ; and amongst other things lost was
The great Brass Bason, or Font for Christenings, given by the Founder
King Edward \\\*
At Girgenti in Sicily, in the year 1908, I saw baptism admin
istered in a silver or white-metal bason. Towards the end of the
high mass in the Duomo this bason was set upon an altar in the
nave, near to where I was, and I saw a child baptized in it, while
the high Mass was still going on in the quire.
It would seem that baptism by immersion had been discontinued
even at the time of the Restoration. It is much to be wished that
baptism by immersion as also many other ancient customs could be
restored ; though, perhaps, not for the reasons which the author of
the following paragraph submits :
Were the immersion in Baptism restor'd here according to the primi
tive Practice, and the Kubrick of the present Church ; it would be more
conformable to the primitive Institution, and more conducive to the
Infants Health ; the Rickets not being known in England until that Cus
tom was omitted, which Immersion I have seen several times practis'd in
1 Canon 81. (Edw. Cardwell, Synodalia, Oxf. 1842, vol. i. p. 211.)
2 G. R. Hadow, The Registers of the Parish of Wylye in the county of Wilts,
1913, Devizes, Simpson, p. 141.
3 J. Wickham Legg and W. H. St. John Hope, Inventories of Christchurch Canter
bury, Westminster, Constable, 1902, pp. 237 and 238.
4 Christopher Wren, Parentalia, London, 1750, p. 137.
BAPTISM. 167
this Church with great Safety and Success, and all the Infants enjoyed
constant Health for many Years.1
Baptism by immersion is indeed the primitive practice, and the
temperature of the water may be artificially raised in which the child
is to be baptized, as it is amongst the Orthodox Christians. And
in the West, though baptism by immersion is not often seen, yet the
godparent usually brings a kettle of warm water with him or her
for use at the font. What is quoted above about the Rickets is of
course pure fancy and may be disregarded. As next best to bap
tism by immersion baptism with abundance of water is to be re
commended. Such an instance of this is given in 1798 :
My brother whispered William Way not to drown it, as he thought he
threw so much cold water on it ; but she was fast asleep the whole time.2
The author of Medicina Clerica mentions quite incidentally as a
cause of the length of the service at the great festivals that " Easter
and Whitsunday are days on which the lower classes like to have
their children baptized"; 3 judging from the rest of the work, I
should think the writer had no notion that these seasons were the
times at which anciently baptism was commonly administered. It
is a curious survival amongst the lower classes, always so conserva
tive. He adds :
I always, too, make a point of pouring away the water in which a child
has been baptized, that it may not be employed by the people of the house
to any superstitious purposes.4
In North Wales during the first half of the eighteenth century
it is noted that
If there be a fynnon vair (well of our lady or other saint in the parish)
the water for baptism in the font is fetched thence. Old women are very
fond of washing their eyes with the water after baptism.5
I am told that on the Continent the eyes are often touched with
holy water, and thus ophthalmia is spread.
The adoption of the Church as a profession has been known to
1 Mitre and Crown, October, 1748, vol. i. p. 3.
2 Serena Holroyd to Maria Josepha Stanley, January 20, 1798, in the Early
Married Life of Maria Josepha Lady Stanley, ed. by Jane H. Adeane, Longmans, 1899,
P- 153.
3 Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 42 note.
4 ibid. p. 134.
5 From a MS. book of a Bishop of St. Asaph, written about a century before publi
cation in British Magazine, 1835, vol. vii. p. 399.
1 68 RESPECT TO BETTERS.
be called "going into the Church," and though it is a convenient
expression, yet the more pedantic have considered that it should
only be applied to entrance into the Church by Baptism. It is used
in this latter sense by one Henry Brougham writing on October I,
1684 to his godfather, Sir Daniel Fleming, whom he thanks for
"the inestimable kindness you did me in procuring my admission
into the Church ".1 Dr. Magrath points out that he really does
mean Baptism. Henry Brougham's letters are not in manner far
behind those of the admirable Mr. Collins in Miss Austen's Pride
and Prejudice.
RESPECT TO BETTERS.
The fifth commandment has for forty years or more been of
little or no account in England. So that it may be useful to point
out how it was kept in our period as a contrast with what passes
before us in our time. Children knelt to ask the parents' blessing.
We are told this by a foreigner who is speaking of the English
manners and customs.
Well brought-up children, on rising and going to bed, wish their
fathers and mothers " Good morning " or " Good evening," and kneeling
before them ask for their blessing. The parents, placing their hands
on their children's heads, say " God bless you," or some such phrase,
and the children then kiss their parents' hands. If they are orphans the
same ceremony is performed with their grandparents or nearest relations.2
Swift alludes to the practice in describing the wild man from
Hanover, perhaps a congenital idiot who had escaped into the woods :
observing children to ask blessing of their mothers, one day he fell
down upon his knees to a sow, and muttered some sounds in that humble
posture.3
In the Spectator there is Honoria, the would-be-young Mother,
whose daughter, Flavia, is almost her rival, and thus awkward acci
dents happen.
When a Lover of Honoria was on his Knees beseeching the Favour to
kiss her Hand, Flavia rushing into the Room kneeled down by him and
asked Blessing.4
1 J. R. Magrath, The Flemings in Oxford, Oxford Historical Society, 1913, vol. ii. p.
129.
2 C£sar de Saussure, A foreign view of England in the Reigns of George I. and
George II. London, Murray, 1902, p. 296.
3 Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. by Walter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. xiii. p.
201, in " It cannot rain but it pours".
* Spectator, No. 91, Thursday, June 14, 1711.
RESPECT TO BETTERS. 169
Hearne speaks of a daughter asking her father's blessing as soon
as she saw him, and again when taking leave.1
Lady Bute reports that her mother, Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, started up from the dressing table and fell on her knees
before a stranger who had just entered the room, and asked his
blessing.2 It was the Duke of Kingston, her father.
In like manner Samuel Richardson speaks of it as a matter
of course, when a child meets a mother, even in a sort of public
place.
Anne saw her first, I alighted, and asked her blessing in the shop : I
am sure I did right. She blessed me and called me dear love.3
A grandmother receives the same marks of respect :
She hurried in to her grandmother, rejoicing, as she always does, to see
her. She kneeled ; received her tender blessing.4
When I was in Vienna in 1909 I saw in a middle class family
the younger members run up, curtsy, and kiss the hand of the
grandmother, or some aged kinswoman.
Godfathers also gave their blessing. There is a characteristic
entry by Mr. Pepys on this custom, April n, 1661.
By and by we come to two little girles keeping cows, and I saw one of
them very pretty, so I had a mind to make her aske my blessing, and
telling her that I was her godfather, she asked me innocently whether I
was not Ned Wooding, and I said that I was, so she kneeled down and
very simply called, " Pray, godfather, pray to God to bless me " which made
us very merry, and I gave her twopence.
The same obeisance is accorded to the priest.
The two younger, impressed by the venerable description Sir Charles
had given of him, [the Rev. Dr. Bartlett] of their own accord, the younger,
by the elder's example, fell down on their knees before him and begged his
blessing.5
If to the priest, still more to the bishop. In Charles Leslie's
Rehearsal we read :
It is the proper office of spriest to bless in the name of the Lord. And it is
the blessing of God we ask from those to whom he has granted commission
1 Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1902, vol.
vi. p. 127.
u George Paston [E. M. Symonds], Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her times,
Methuen, no date [ ? 1907], p. 287.
3 Samuel Richardson, The history of Sir Charles Grandison, Bart. Chapman and
Hall, 1902, vol. iv. Letter xxxviii. p. 296.
4 ibid. vol. v. Letter xiv. p. 124. 6 ibid. vol. iv. Letter v. p. 51.
170 RESPECT TO BETTERS.
to give it. We ask it upon our knees from our natural parents, much more
ought we from our fathers in God, to whom he has given his commission, and
separated them for that end.
and a few lines above the same writer has said
we kneel to our bishops and ask their blessing.^
John Hudson, Bodley's Librarian, tells Hearne that when at
Peterborough in 1707,
As I went into the Church just as the Evening Prayers were ended I
mett the Bishop, [Richard Cumberland] and beg'd his blessing ; I told him
that I was a Traveller that came from Oxon.2
There is another earlier instance when a whole people seems to
have gone on its knees to ask the Bishops' blessing. This is the
description which Evelyn gives us of the Seven Bishops going to
the Tower on June 8, 1688.
The concern of the people for them was wonderfull, infinite crouds on
their knees begging their blessing, and praying for them as they pass'd out
of the barge alone [along] the Tower-wharfe.
Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, had a somewhat dis
agreeable experience of a pretended respect paid by a false devotee.
For when he was leaving the Tower for his exile,
One of the fair enthusiasts went up to his chair and kissed his hand.
She manifested a world of affectionate tenacity, and the ex-prelate was only
just in time to discover that the pretty, tearful Jenny Diver had quietly drawn
a valuable ring off his finger, with her lips. The ring was saved, but Atter
bury consigned her to the mob who as the papers remark, followed the
usual custom on such occasions. They ducked her in the river.8
Atterbury had not ceased to be a prelate as Dr. Doran suggests,
though deprived of his see.
Much later in the century we find both the practice of blessing
and kneeling in existence in the Isle of Man :
The kneeling for a blessing is very customary amongst relatives in the
Isle of Mann when they meet ; and the benediction pronounced is, generally,
Dy bannee Jee oo: — "God bless you". It is also usual with the islanders,
upon meeting their diocesan, to kneel down on one knee, and ask his blessing.*
1 Rehearsal, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 1707, N. 266, in A View of the Times, ed. Phila-
lethes [Charles Leslie] sec. ed. London, 1750, vol. iv. p. 181.
2 Letters addressed to Thomas Hearne, ed. Frederic Ouvry, privately printed, 1874,
p. 16.
3 John Doran, London in the Jacobite Times, London, Bentley, 1877, vol. i. p. 434.
4 Memoirs of Mark Hildesley D.D. Lord Bishop ofSodor and Mann, ed. by Weeden
Butler, London, Nichols, 1799, p. 98.
BARING THE HEAD IN CHURCH. 171
The custom of kneeling for the Bishop's blessing must have
lasted up to the end of our period, if not beyond it. A writer who
does not give dates speaks of it thus at Exeter :
In those days the choir boys always waited in the nave, after service,
for the Bishop's blessing as he passed. ... I was standing near them,
and, as they knelt, followed their example.1
In Sir Roger de Coverley's parish church, it is said that
The Knight walks down from his Seat in the Chancel between a
double Row of his Tenants, that stand bowing to him on each Side.2
In Medicina Clerica one of the reasons for having a vestry door
near the reading pew is that the congregation may not get up to
make their bows and curtsies on the clergyman's entrance or
passing them.3
Nowadays the whole congregation rises when the clergy come
into the church to perform service, which possibly enough took its
origin in the practice just spoken of.
Miss Austen is shocked at a disrespectful utterance which seems
to us quite slight.4 In Democratic France, Monsieur Rene Boy-
lesve speaks of young people calling their parents by their
Christian names,6 and I have heard that the same thing is done in
England. In more colleges than one at Oxford, the undergraduates
address the dons by their nicknames. Thus the spirit of democracy
eats into the very heart of family life and of discipline.
BARING THE HEAD IN CHURCH.
In the eighteenth century they had for the most part unlearnt
the Puritan practice of sitting in Church with the hat on. Mr.
Pepys heard a sermon against the practice on November 17, 1661,
which is some evidence of its existence.
And so some thirteen years after it was still thought desirable
to admonish persons against the practice :
1 An elderly Bachelor, Not many years ago, London, Skeffington, 1898, sec. ed. ch.
vi. p. 105. I am indebted to an Elderly Bachelor for a copy of his work the value of
which must increase every year.
2 Spectator, No. 112, Monday, July 9, 1711.
3 Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 14.
4 Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, ch. vi. Miss Crawford spoke of her " honoured
uncle," who was not altogether a good character.
5 Rene" Boylesve, Madeleine jeune femme, ch. iii.
172 EXCHANGE OF SALUTATIONS IN CHURCH.
not putting on our Hats in contempt, as soon as Prayers or service is
over.1
And as late as 1716 it was thought necessary to warn persons
against walking into church with the hat on :
The plain Meaning of Eccles. 5.1. exprest agreeably to our Customs or
Fashions, is this: Take care and put off your Hat, when you go into the
House of God or Church.2
But Bernard Mandeville remarks : " If we see a man walk with
his hat on in a church, though out of service time, it shocks us".3
Johnson speaks with respect of Dr. John Campbell as a good pious
man though he has not been inside a church for many years, be
cause he never passes a church without pulling off his hat.4
Such an act of reverence would have been approved by Dr.
Butler, the great Bishop of Durham, who recommends reminders
to stir up in our hearts the sense of our duty to God.
Exhort them to make use of every circumstance, which brings the
subject of religion at all before them ; to turn their hearts habitually to
him ; to recollect seriously the thoughts of his presence in whom they live
and move and have their being^ and by a short act of their mind devote
themselves to his service. — If, for instance, persons would accustom them
selves to be thus admonished by the very sight of a church, could it be
called superstition ? 5
This idea was enlarged by the Rev. Thomas Richards in a work
which went through at least six editions :
Secret Ejaculations too may be used as you are walking, or riding, or
in whatever Company you may happen to be — and, on some particular
Hour, remember (as for Instance, at Morning, Noon, or Evening, when
your TOWN-CLOCK strikes, which will be a loud and never-failing Memo
randum) to set yourself in the Presence of GOD for a few Minutes.6
EXCHANGE OF SALUTATIONS IN CHURCH.
Fashionable people at the beginning of the eighteenth century
commonly saluted each other when they came into church. The
1 Thomas Wemys, Beth-Hak-Kodesh, London, Bring, 1674, P- I4I-
2 Edward Wells, Discourse concerning the great and indispensable duty of a decent
and reverent behaviour in church at all times, London, Knapton, 1716, p. u.
3 B. Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, gth ed. Edinburgh, 1755, vol. i. p. 141.
4 BosweWs Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. i. p. 417,
about July i, 1763.
5 Joseph Butler, A charge delivered to the Clergy . . . of Durham, 1751, in Works,
ed. by W. E. Gladstone, Oxford, 1896, vol. ii. p. 412.
6 [Thomas] Richards, Hints for Religious Conversation, London, Dilly, 3 ed.
1771, p. 36. For an account of this author see above, in ch. iv. p. 85.
REVERENCES IN CHURCH, 173
writers in the Spectator notice it. It was frowned upon by the more
reverent, but it nevertheless continued till after the middle of the
century.
I have a very angry Letter from a Lady, who tells me of one of her
Acquaintance, who, out of mere Pride and a Pretence to be rude, takes upon
her to return no Civilities done to her in Time of Divine Service, and is
the most religious Woman for no other Reason but to appear a Woman of
the best Quality in the Church.1
A little later on the Spectator speaks of:
The Ceremonies, Bows, Curtsies, Whisperings, Smiles, Winks, Nods,
with other familiar Arts of Salutation, which take up in our Churches so
much Time, that might be better employed, and which seem so utterly
inconsistent with the Duty and true Intent of our entring into those
Religious Assemblies.2
He praises the much better behaviour in the Roman Catholic
churches abroad.
Lavinia, who was to church as constant as to Drury Lane, be
haves thus as she enters the pew :
Her lifted fan, to give a solemn air,
Conceals her face, which passes for a prayer \
Curt'sies to curt'sies, then, with grace, succeed ;
Not one the fair omits, but at the creed.
Or if she joins the Service, 'tis to speak ;
Thro' dreadful silence the pent heart might break :
* # *
Since Sundays have no balls, the well-dress'd belle
Shines in the pew, but smiles to hear of hell?
Mrs. Primrose, it will be remembered, complained that the
Squire's wife only returned her civilities at church with a mutilated
curtsey.4
REVERENCE MADE TO THE ALTAR.
But putting aside these mutual salutations on entering the church
there is another obeisance different altogether, that is made to the
East of the Church, or to the altar itself. It is noticed early in
our period. Mr. Pepys being at Windsor, on February 26, 1665-66,
records :
1 Spectator, No. 259, Dec. 27, 1711. zidem. No. 460, Aug. 18, 1712.
3 Edward Young, Love of fame. Satire vi. line 25, in Works, London, 1757, vol.
i. pp. 141, 154.
4 Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, ch. i. See also above, p. 64.
174 REVERENCES IN CHURCH.
Great bowing by all the people, the poor Knights in particularly, to the
Alter.
This bowing to the altar at Windsor went on at the installa
tion of Knights of the Garter in 1762.*
The sovereign, making his reverence to the altar, descended from his
stall, and then making another reverence, proceeded to the offering. . . .
The sovereign coming to the rails of the altar, Black Rod delivered the
offering on his knee to the knight, who presented it to the sovereign ;
and his majesty taking off his cap, and kneeling, put the offering into the
bason held by the prelate assisted by the prebends.
The sovereign then rising, made one reverence to the altar, and being
in his stall another.
The reverences made by the knights are here omitted from this
extract.
One New Year's day, 1787, Miss Burney gives an account of the
reverences made by the Sovereign.
The Dean then read aloud, " Let your light so shine before men, &c. "
The organ began a slow and solemn movement, and the King came down
from his stall, and proceeded, with a grave and majestic walk, towards the
communion table. When he had proceeded about a third of the way, he
stopped, and bowed low to the altar : then he moved on, and again, at an
equal distance, stopped for the same formality, which was a third and last
time repeated as he reached the steps of the altar. Then he made his
offering, which, according to the order of the original institution, was ten
pounds in gold and silver, and delivered in a purse : he then knelt down,
and made a silent prayer.2
Leaving the ceremonies at Windsor, let us return to general
custom.
In 1682 an attempt is made to justify Church customs against
Puritan prejudice ; and incidentally is shown what these customs
are:
Prejudice. Have I not seen your Gravest Divines among you, at
their entrance into the Church, cast their Eyes upon the Glass Windows,
bow towards the Altars, worship the Pictur'd Saints, and make Leggs to
the Brazen Candlesticks ?
Reason. All this is said upon the account of Bowing towards the
Altar.3
1 Annual Register, 1762, Chronicle, Sept. 22, fifth ed. , London, Dodsley, 1787,
p. 125.
2 Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay, London, Colburn, 1842, vol. iii. p. 269,
January i, 1787.
3 A Dialogue between Mr. Prejudice . . . and Mr. Reason, a Student in the Uni
versity, London, Sawbridge, 1682, p. 7.
RE VERENCES IN CHURCH. 1 7 5
This is testimony offered by the Churchmen themselves of what
they did It is better evidence than what is given us by a wretched
renegade who had turned his coat many times. He thus pours out
his venom :
Risum teneatis ? Amid I Come hold your sides ... to see a grave
Dignitory f of the Church, with Tippet and Sattin Cap, a gaudy Cope and
Hood (before and behind) nodding his Reverend Head, and making
Reverences so humble, that his brisly Chin even kisses the ground (no
Antick French Man, or Father Peter, can outvie the Complement) in an
humble Address to the East, to the Altar.1
Dr. Edward Bernard, Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford
towards the end of the seventeenth century, thus records his
practice :
When I enter the place of common prayer, as the choir of a collegiate
Church, or the body of a parish church or chappell, I worship God by
humble bowing of my body towards his holy altar, where I have often ex
perienced his most gracious and glorious presence.2
To encourage the practice of making a reverence when coming
into church there was published in 1706 a tract of 44 pages with
this title :
Reverential Love : or, God Honour'd by the Pious Decency of The
Minister's humbly Bowing the Head when he approaches to, or comes
from, the Altar, or Communion-Table, in the Worship of God . . .
London : printed by W. B. for William Carter, at the Green Dragon
in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1706.
On p. 8, § iv. the writer asks :
Shall it be a Duty for a Priest of the Jews to worship God before the
Altar ; and must it be a Sin, or no Duty for a Christian Priest to worship
God before the Altar ?
If we have a Christian Sacrifice, must we have no Altar ? Or if we
have, must we not worship there ?
In 1707 Hearne quotes a letter of Dr. Hickes, written in the
same year, bewailing the disappearance of the ancient notion of
Priest, Sacrifice, and Altar, and that
the antient devout Custom of worshiping towards the Holy Altar is quite
laid aside in some Cathedrals, and Colleges, and begins to be disused in
others, and as I hear, in another place, which I shall not name.3
1 Edm. Hickeringill, The Ceremony Monger, London, 1689, ch. i. p. 13.
2 Manuscript in lower margin of leaf a i. of Act of Uniformity in Dr. Edward
Bernard's Book of Common Prayer in the Bodleian Library, C. P. 1686, c. i (formerly
S. C. 27762).
3 Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1886, vol. ii.
p. 64.
1 7 6 RE VERENCES IN CHURCH.
The source of the information is Hickes, who was not at that
time a member of the Church of England, and his testimony may
therefore be suspect. And Hearne is always ready to look on the
dark side. But in the north bowing at coming into church was
still the practice.
We may observe the Generality of old People among the Commonalty,
as they enter into the Church, to turn their Faces towards the Altar, and
bow or kneel that Way.
* * *
in the ancient Church they prayed with their Faces to the East ; and that
many of our own Church at this Day, turn their Faces to that Quarter of
the World, at the Repetition of the Creed.1
The same testimony comes from an Archdeacon of Northumber
land.
If it be asked whether there be any Piety, or Religion, in bowing to
wards the Altar, or at the name of Jesus, or in turning sometimes towards
the East at the Repetition of the Creeds &c. which are customs received
from the undated Usage of the Christian Church ? I answer, There is no
Holiness in these Things by any Means . . . only Points of Order and
Decency?
There is, I think, an allusion to bowing at entering the church
and going out in Arbuthnot's John Bull.
They were so plagued with bowing and cringing as they went in and
out of the room, that their backs ached.3
In the Pious Country Parishioner the communicant is told :
At the end of the Communion, turn your Face to the Altar, and bow
ing your Body, say to your self;
Mine Eyes have seen Thy Salvation (5rv.4
This direction continues in the ninth edition of 1745, but it has
disappeared in the thirteenth, that of 1753.
The Rev. J. R. Hill, S.P.G. Missionary at Banda in India,
writes to me that a relative of his, who died in 1874 aged 83, told
him that when she was a girl it was a common practice among the
people of Yapton, near Arundel, Sussex, to bow to the altar before
entering the pews. This information was given on the occasion of
1 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, pp. 29-31.
2 Thomas Sharp, A sermon preached at the opening of the New Chapel of Cornhill
upon Tweed, on Sunday, July 12, 1752, Newcastle upon Tyne, no date, p. 17.
s The history of John Bull, ch. viii. (Jon. Swift, Works, ed. Walter Scott, Edin
burgh, 1814, vol. vi. p. 328).
4 Pious Country Parishioner, London, Pemberton, 1732, sixth edition, p. 194.
TURNING TO THE EAST. 177
its being noticed that an old man, much older than Mr. Hill's in
formant, did not enter his pew before, standing in the centre walk
of the nave, he had bowed his head to the altar.
In Devonshire, before " Puseyism" came in, the country people
" made their reverences on entering and leaving the Church ",1
BOWING AT THE SACRED NAME.
Bowing at the sacred name of Jesus was a practice denounced
with much warmth by the Puritans, but it had been re-enacted by
the canons of 1604 as testifying to the belief that Our Lord Jesus
Christ is the very and eternal Son of God.2 This Canon has never
been repealed, so that it is still the law of the Church of England,
with whatever neglect private persons may presume to treat it.
Accordingly bowing at the name of Jesus was pressed at the
early part of the eighteenth century, when Dr. Clarke and his fol
lowers began to make way in the Church :
This custom is very useful against the Arians and other enemies of
our Lord's Divinity ; and therefore never more strictly to be kept up than
in these days, wherein those enemies abound.3
In these days when not only Arianism but pure Deism exists
among the clergy, it would be a most significant practice if the
laity would resume this custom as an emphatic declaration of their
belief in the Divinity of Our Lord.
TURNING TO THE EAST AT THE CREED.
It will be noticed how persistent has been the custom in the
Church of England of turning to the East at the Apostles' Creed
Towards the end of the nineteenth century certain persons, hangers-
on to the High Church school, though really unworthy of that
honoured name, discovered that the custom was only English, and
they discontinued it in their persons. It was, however, known in
France, as the following quotation, shown me by the Rev. E. Beres-
ford Cooke, will decide :
Pourquoy est-on tourne vers 1'Autel en disant le Credo ?
1 An Elderly Bachelor, Not many years ago, London, Skeffington, 1898, sec. ed.
ch. iii. p. 52.
2 Canon 18. (Edw. Cardwell, Synodalia, Oxford, 1842, vol. i. pp. 172 and 255).
3 Thomas Bisse, The Beauty of Holiness in the Common Prayer, sec. ed. London,
Taylor and Innei;. 1721, p. 145, note.
12
1 78 TURNING TO THE EAST.
Pour la meme raison que nous avons dit du, Pater &C.1
The work, like so many explanations of ceremonies, is not valu
able for the reasons which it gives, but for the practices which it
records.
TURNING TO THE EAST AT GLORIA PATRI.
Speaking of Gloria Patri, Dr. Bisse says :
(. . . it is a Creed as well as an Hymn) being so often rehearsed in our
Service, and that alternately by the Minister and People.2
Minister and People did not say it together, but by way of ver-
sicle and respond. This practice seems to have been universal in
England down to the middle of the nineteenth century, just as it
still is in France and Italy. It was then discovered to be the "cor
rect " thing for minister and people to say Gloria Patri all together.
The Right Reverend Dr. Richardson, late Bishop of Zanzibar, told
me that when he entered at Merton College in 1863 he found Gloria
Patri said in the following fashion : Supposing the first psalm to
be said had an odd number of verses, the officiant would say the
last verse of the psalm, the college would say Glory be, etc., the
officiant would say As it was, etc., and the college would begin
the first verse of the second psalm. This might easily happen at
morning prayer on the first day of the month. The good bishop
also informed me that his aunt, hearing this, told him that when
she was young this was the practice in the parish church. The
Rev. Arthur Davies, when an undergraduate at Queen's College in
the same University of Oxford, found that this was also the custom
in that Society.
The psalms were thus still said alternately by priest and people ;
which practice is recorded by writers of the seventeenth and eigh
teenth centuries.
This Psalm, \Venite\ and indeed all others, as also the Hymns, ought
to be answered Verse by Verse with the Minister : And in Cathedrals,
one side of the Quire to say or sing one Verse ; and the other side the
other.3
1 Raymond Bonal, Explication litterale et mystique des rubriques et ceremonies du
Breviaire, Lyon, Pierre Valfray, 1679, p. 54.
2 Thomas Bisse, The beauty of holiness in the Common Prayer, London, Taylor
and Innys, second edition, 1721, p. 43.
3 H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in Time
of Divine Service, sec. ed. London, 1693, p. 19.
TURNING TO THE EAST. 179
So also Wheatly, writing after Cornwaleys, speaks of the alter
nate recitation of the psalms :
This practice, so primitive and devout, our Church (though there is no
particular rubric to enjoin it) still continues in her Service either by sing
ing, as in our cathedral worship; or by saying, as in the parochial.1
When the Spectator was coming out Gloria Patri was evidently
considered a particularly sacred part of the service ; for the parish
clerk speaks of a young woman as if she were committing an act
unusually scandalous by interrupting her devotion while this
formula was being repeated.
I have often seen her rise up and smile, and curtsy to one at the
lower end of the Church in the midst of a Gloria Patri?
Under Dr. Peploe, Bishop of Chester from 1726 to 1752, there
began at the Collegiate Church of Manchester, not then a cathedral,
some attempts at ceremonial of which we have no very accurate
account. It is unfortunate that we have no description of the
events but from those hostile to the doings on both sides : for ex
ample, the Bishop's visitation for the suppression of certain practices,
and the ceremonies themselves, are only recorded to be ridiculed.
Thus it is somewhat troublesome to make out what was really done.
The following extract from Thomas Percival's Letter to the Clergy
appears to describe in a highly sarcastic manner the turning to the
East at Gloria Patri.
And indeed for my own Part I must give way to my Passion, at his
[Josiah Owen] so foolishly ridiculing those mysterious Ceremonies of bowing
to the East, &c. What is in that Man's Head ? or is there any Thing in
it ? when he is so dull that he can't see Religion in the very bowing, and
much more when the bowing is to the East. For my part I must own I
was greatly edified at seeing the two Chaplains face to the West, step once,
face to the North, step again, face to the East, bow, face to the South ;
* step once, face to the East ; step once, and then face to their Reading
Desk, at each Gloria Patri, with as regular a Motion, as just a Deportment,
and as grave an Aspect, as the oldest Veteran in the Army. Nay so exact
were they in their Discipline, that I could not distinguish any Difference
of Time in performing the Motions ; only I must for the sake of Truth,
say, that the lesser [Clayton] has the most religious Bow, and the most
* JV.J5. The Chaplains being of contrary Sides the facing to North and South is
vice versa the one to the other.
1 Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch.
III. sect. ix. § 4. ed. G. E. Corrie, Cambridge, 1858, p. 122.
2 Spectator, No. 284, Friday, January 25, 1711-12.
12 *
i8o TURNING TO THE EAST.
pious Rowl of his Eyes I ever saw, besides the mysterious Cross he makes
with his Hands before him.1
Clayton was one of the Clergy much influenced by Dr. Deacon,
the Bishop of the Nonjurors in Manchester; at Oxford in 1733 he
had been one of John Wesley's friends, who communicated every
week, and kept the fast days of the Church.2 At Salford he was
well known and obtained much support from the generality of the
clergy. But Percival himself was not free from grave faults and was ill
qualified to censure Clayton. On one occasion his daughter wrote
that her father was so ill last week that his recovery was doubted of.
His disorder was caused by his having been drunk nine days suc
cessively.3 The Josiah Owen mentioned by Percival in his first
line was a presbyterian minister, and Whig journalist.
The Rev. Arthur Lampen informs me that at Probus in Corn
wall, where his father, the Rev. John Lampen, was Curate to his
cousin, the Rev. Robert Lampen, Prebendary of Exeter, the rest of
the service being of the strictly evangelical type, the people always
turned to the east and bowed at the Gloria Patri. This was about, or
soon after, 1828.
In North Devon, before " Puseyism '* came in, it is said that the
country folk
used to turn to the east at every doxology in the ending up of the Psalms,
and of the Tate and Brady's Version of the Psalms. All the singing time
they used to face west, staring at the gallery, with its faded green curtains ;
and then, when the Gloria came, they all turned "right about" and faced
eastwards.4
GLORIA TIBI Do MINE.
Immediately after the Restoration we find the practice of saying
Glory be to thee O Lord before the Gospel continued from earlier times.
It is spoken of by a musician, familiar with the practice of St.
Paul's and the Chapel Royal.
1A Letter to the Reverend the Clergy of the Collegiate Church of Manchester :
occasioned by Mr. Owen's Remarks both on Dr. Deacon's Catechism, and on the Con
duct of some of the Manchester Clergy ; in the Second Edition of his Jacobite and
Nonjuring Principles freely examin'd. By a Believer in the Doctrines of the Church of
England, London, J. Robinson, 1748, p. 21.
2 See below, ch. ix. p. 298.
3F. R. Raines and F. Renaud, The fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester,
Chetham Society, 1891, Part ii. p. 255.
4 An Elderly Bachelor, Not many years ago, London, Skeffington, 1898, ch. iii. sec.
ed. p. 52.
STANDING AT THE GOSPEL. 181
The second, or Communion Service.
After the Epistle, this heavenly Ejaculation, Glory be to thee O Lord.1
It is to be found in Cosin's second and third Orders for the Con
secration of Churches.2
There is evidence of the same practice in 1721.
The first is, that all the Congregation stand up at the reading of them,
[the gospels] as being the word of the Master ;
* * *
Secondly, The other honour paid to the Gospel, was, that after the
naming of it, all the People standing up, said, Glory be to thee O Lord.
This usage borrowed from ancient Liturgies our Reformers continued in
Ours : and tho' afterwards discontinued in the Kubrick, yet custom still
continues the use of it in most Cathedral and in many Parochial Churches :
and the voice of Custom is in many cases the voice of Law. 3
A giving of thanks after the Gospel was also practised.
The Gospel, which follows, being the Word of our Master himself, we
are commanded to stand up ; and after it is read, we say an Hallelujah, or,
We praise thee, O God, for thy Holy Gospel^
Wheatly, writing after Cornwaleys, says
The custom of saying, Glory be to thee, O Lord, when the Minister was
about to read the Holy Gospel, and of singing Hallelujah, or saying,
Thanks be to God for his holy Gospel, when he had concluded it, is as old
as St. Chrysostom ; but we have no authority for it in our present Liturgy.5
STANDING AT THE GOSPEL.
The following extracts give us some view of what the inhabitants
of Holborn considered innovations in the first quarter of the eigh
teenth century. They admit that
It was the Custom at the Beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign, for
the People to stand up at the Gloria Patri, and when the Te Deum, Jubilate,
and the other Hymns were repeated ; . . . and the Custom for the People to
say, Glory be to thee, O Lord.
But now an entirely unnecessary practice had begun of standing
up at other times :
1 J. Clifford, Divine Service and Anthems, London, Brome, 1663, Sheet A, 7 v.
2J. Wickham Legg, English Orders for consecrating Churches in the seventeenth
century, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1911, pp. 235 and 253.
3 Thomas Bisse, The beauty of holiness in the Common Prayer, sec. ed. London,
Taylor and Innys, 1721, p. 141, iv. Sermon.
4 H[enry] C[ornwaleys], Brief Directions for our more Devout Behaviour in time
of Divine Service, second ed. London, 1693, p. 33.
5 Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, Ch.
VI, sect. vi. § 3, ed. G. E. Corrie, Cambridge, 1858, p. 308.
1 82 STANDING AT THE GOSPEL.
They must needs STAND UP at the Reading of the Second Lesson when
taken out of the Gospels, and also at the Singing of the Psalms, with other
Odnesses.
Complaint is also made of the disturbance caused by people
rising when the Lord's prayer occurs in the second lesson. And
the writer insinuates very plainly that those who practise these in
novations are no good friends to the House of Brunswick.
You know . . . what sort of People they are who chiefly promote these
Innovations and are most forward to distinguish themselves by little Cere
monious Observances ; and you also know what King it is they incline to.1
At this time Sacheverell still held the living of St. Andrew's
Holborn, and his sympathies were with Jacobites and Nonjurors.
He stood at the door of his church and respectfully saluted Thomas
Deacon accompanying the prisoners led from Newgate to Tyburn
for execution after the rising of I7I5.2 And it must be noticed
that it was in the parish of St. Andrew's Holborn that there was
the private oratory in Scrope Court. There Hickes and two
Scottish bishops continued the Nonjuring succession by consecrating
Spinckes, Collier, and Hawes to be bishops at large.3
Now in the innovations complained of at St. Andrew's Holborn
we may perhaps be allowed to see the influence of the Dissenting
Nonjurors in the parish. There can be little doubt of the influence
of Deacon upon the clergy of the Collegiate Church at Manchester,
and these innovations such as standing up at the reading of the
gospel when occurring in the second lesson, which are imitations of
Greek customs, would be much affected by the Dissenting Non-
jurors, and even by Churchmen. So we are told by White Kennett
that some Church people would not go to their seats " till they had
kneel'd and pray'd at the Rails of the Communion Table ".4 This
practice may be looked upon as an imitation of the Oriental custom
of going to the iconostasis on coming into church, and saluting the
holy icons. It was a convenient way of damaging a churchman's
reputation to insinuate that those who were following the greatest
enemies of Rome were tending Romeward themselves, and more
allied to the Jacobites than they should be.
1 A letter to an inhabitant of the Parish of St. Andrew's Holborn, about New Cere
monies in the Church, sec. ed. London, James Knapton, 1717, pp. 3, 4, 10, 12, 14.
2 Henry Broxap, A Biography of Thomas Deacon, Manchester, 1911, p. 19.
3 J. H. Overton, The Nonjurors, London, Smith Elder, 1902, p. 118.
4 The Life of the Right Reverend Dr. White Kennett, London, Billingsley, 1730,
p. 126. Letter dated 1716.
KNEELING AT PR A YERS. 183
KNEELING AT PRAYERS,
The Greeks do not as a rule kneel in prayer ; but this was not
the reason which the Presbyterians would have given for their doing
the like. They looked upon kneeling as a popish practice, to be
much discouraged. Thus, here and there, after the Restoration,
there appears the practice of standing during the prayers, as a sur
vival from the times of the Rebellion.
Sir Matthew Hale, in his advice to his family, written only in the
second year after the Restoration, begs them to kneel at the prayers,
but to stand at the epistle as well as at the gospel, from which mark
of respect they should abstain if any of the Apocrypha were read.1
This would make a very distinct difference between the canon
ical and deutero-canonical scriptures ; and standing at the epistle
would put the latter on the same level as the gospel.
As much as in you lies, endeavour to perswade your Congregation to
Kneel in the time of Divine Service. ... If they cannot have convenience
for Kneeling, at least let them stand up at Prayers.2
This is the sound advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury to
the Archdeacons of the diocese of St. Davids in Wales, sede vacante.
In i/n there is a description of the behaviour of some young
women at Church. The man complains that
When the Service began, I had not room to kneel at the Confession,
but as I stood &c.3
When hindered from kneeling, standing was as reverent a posture
as kneeling, and far better than the sitting and leaning forward
with head on the desk which is so common now, and of which we
hear complaints in the eighteenth century, as we shall see a little
later on.
The Spectator soon after takes notice of the behaviour of a young
woman at Church that " one thing indeed was particular, she stood
the whole Service, and never kneeled or sat " : 4 but she was a co
quette, and her object in coming to church does not seem to
have been that for which the church was established.
1 [Matthew Hale,] Contemplations Moral and Divine, London, Shrewsbury, 1676, in
Directions for keeping the Lord's Day, p. 87.
2 His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Letter to the Reverend the Arch-
Deacons and the rest of the Clergy of the Diocese of St. David, London, 1703, p. 15.
3 Spectator, No. 53, Tuesday, May i, 1711.
4 ibid. No. 503, Tuesday, October 7, 1712. In No. 515 she is called plainly a
Coquette.
184 ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC.
And the same year the Spectator seems to have heard a sermon
preached against standing during the prayers :
On Sunday last, one, who shall be nameless, reproving several of his
Congregation for standing at Prayers, was pleased to say l &c.
Standing in prayer being part of the relics of Puritanism was
therefore disliked by the clergy ; as putting on the hat in church out
of service time was a following of the presbyterians. Standing up
during prayers had not become quite extinct even in the nineteenth
century. It has been inferred because it is said of an officer in church
that he kneeled, that the rest of the congregation, or the officers, sat
during the prayers.2 But this is not a legitimate inference. The
likelihood is that many of the congregation early in the nineteenth
century stood during the prayers : a very seemly and decent posture,
if not adopted from fanaticism ; and it is quite primitive. In the
middle of the nineteenth century I can remember old half-pay offi
cers who stood with their hats before their faces during prayer time.
They did not mean to be irreverent. To this day in Italy one may
see men devoutly hearing mass, yet standing.
There was even in our period a much more undesirable practice
than that of standing at the prayers, namely sitting, or leaning for
ward while sitting :
While these Prayers are reading we ought devoutly to continue upon
our Knees; not sitting, nor in any other slothful Posture, as too many
profanely and irreverently do.3
At Naples in 1908 I found some Italians adopting this "devo
tional attitude " during mass, if only a second chair were near.
VOLUNTARIES DURING SERVICE.
Early in Charles the Second's reign they had the custom of
playing a voluntary after the psalms, and this passed on into the
rest of our period. In Clifford's book we read :
The first Service in the morning.
After the Psalms a Voluntary upon the Organ alone,
and again :
1 Spectator, No. 455, Tuesday, August 12, 1712.
2 A Memoir of Jane Austen, by her nephew, J. E. Austen Leigh, Bentley, 1870,
p. 23.
3 Directions for a Devout and Decent Behaviour in the Public Worship of God, thir
tieth ed. S.P.C.K. [? 1750] p. 18.
ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC. 185
After the Blessing, i. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ &c. a Volun
tary alone upon the Organ.1
In 1714 the Spectator approves of the voluntary after the
psalms :
Methinks there is something very laudable in the Custom of a Volun
tary before the first lesson.2
And the custom remained for near a century after.
The Voluntary before the First Lesson.
This practice common in all churches which have an organ.3
ORGANS.
it is hardly worth while to stay and prove how much organs
were hated by the Puritans. This will be accepted by all.
Organs began to be played again in churches immediately after the
Restoration. Within a month of the King's return the organs at
Whitehall began again. On June 17, 1660 Mr. Pepys records:
This day the organs did begin to play at White Hall before the King.
On July 15, 1 66 1 he writes at Cambridge :
Then to King's College chappell, where I found the scholars in their
surplices at the service with the organs, which is a strange sight to what
it used in my time to be here.
At Rochester he had been on April 10 in the same year, and
found " the organ then a-tuning".
It was ordered for the King's chapels on Dec. 13, 1663 that
of the three Organistes two shall ever attend, one at the organ, the other
in his surplice in the quire.4
At the consecration on St. Peter's day 1665 of the new chapel
at Auckland the organist was directed more than once to play " a
still verse".5
On April 4, 1667 Mr. Pepys says :
To Hackney . . . here I was told that at their church they have a fair
*J. Clifford, Divine Services and Anthems, London, 1663, Signature A. 7.
2 Spectator, No. 630, Wednesday, December 8, 1714.
3 Richard Warner, Book of Common Prayer, 1806. Note to morning prayer, first
lesson.
4 The Old Cheque Book, ed. Rimbault, Camden Society, 1872, New Series III, p.
83.
5 J. Wickham Legg, English Orders for Consecrating Churches in the Seventeenth
Century, Henry Bradshaw Society, 191 1, p. 231.
1 86 ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC.
pair of organs, which play while the people sing, which I arn mighty glad
of, wishing the like at our church at London.
Here Mr. Pepys' love of music got the better of his presby-
terianism.
After the fire in the City in 1666 there seems to have been some
delay in furnishing the new churches with organs. From the lists,
most likely not complete, given in 1708, the number of churches with
organs would seem to be under thirty.1 It is quite possible that
the parishioners, taxed to their utmost to build a new church, would
be ready to wait awhile before providing what is more or less of a
luxury in public worship.
Still in 1714 it is said that
most Churches and Chappels are adorned with very good Organs^ which
accompany the Singing of Psalms^ and play Voluntaries to the assemblies
as they go out of the Churches.2
In the same year the Spectator mentions the voluntary after the
psalms as a laudable practice.3
Where the parish clerk was so much upset by the misbehaviour
of a young lady in curtsying to her lover that he wandered out of
the tune of the Old Hundredth into Southwell Tune and Windsor
Tune, there could have been no organ to keep him from straying.4
Yet so late as the beginning of the second quarter of the
eighteenth century, the Puritans did their best to hinder the in
troduction of organs.
1724-5 Feb. 14, Sun.
Notwithstanding the Clamours (mentioned above, p. 58, &c.) of many
of St. Peter's Parish in the East, Oxford, against the Organ offered them
by the University, yet the wisest Part of them came to a resolution, in op
position to the rest, to accept of it, and contribute towards a Place in
which it should be fix'd, and accordingly, a Place being prepared, the
Organ was translated Yesterday in the Afternoon, St. Marie's and St.
Peter's Bells ringing all the time.5
Even near the end of the eighteenth century an organ was not
always part of the church or chapel furniture.
We have got a Seat in Duke Street Chapel. I should have preferred
a Church with an Organ in it.6
1 A New View of London, in two volumes, 1708.
2 A journey through England in familiar letters, etc. London, 1714, vol. i. p. 202.
3 See above, p. 185. 4 Spectator, No. 284, January 25, 1712.
5 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol.
viii. p. 334.
6 The Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd, ed. by Jane H. Adeane, Longmans, 1896,
p. 9. Letter dated March, 1784.
ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC. 187
In John Shepherd's book on the Common Prayer he remarks of
the organ that
the want cannot be supplied by any other kind of instrumental music.
Violins, bassoons, flutes, etc. ought to be entirely excluded.1
But early in the nineteenth century organs must have become
almost universal in English churches : a rough ignorant fellow de
fined the Church of England to be a " large building with an organ
in it".2
There are many other incidental notes of organs in churches in
these pages, which it is hoped may be found by looking in the index.
MUSIC.
Of the music performed in the churches we have no very full
account. It is not likely to have been good in the country churches,
except perhaps in Yorkshire and Lancashire, where it was made a
study.
The famous author of Brown's Estimate writes thus of the
Church Music of his time :
But while we justly admire the sacred Poetry of our Cathedral Service,
must we not lament the State of it in our parochial Churches, where the
cold, the meagre, the disgusting Dulness of STERNHOLD and his Companions,
hath quenched all the poetic Fire and devout Majesty of the royal Psalmist.
* * *
Our parochial Music, in general, is solemn and devout : Much better
calculated for the Performance of a whole Congregation, than if it were
more broken and elaborate. In Country Churches, wherever a more
artificial Kind hath been imprudently attempted, Confusion and Dissonance
are the general Consequence.
* * *
The Performance of our parochial Psalms, though in the Villages it be
often as mean and meagre as the Words that are sung ; yet in great Towns,
where a good Organ is skilfully and devoutly employed by a sensible
Organist, the Union of this Instrument with the Voices of a well-instructed
Congregation, forms one of the grandest Scenes of unaffected Piety that
human Nature can afford. The Reverse of this appears, when a Company
of illiterate People form themselves into a Choir distinct from the Congre
gation. Here devotion is lost, between the impotent Vanity of those who
sing, and the ignorant Wonder of those who listen?
1John Shepherd, A critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common
Prayer, London, Rivington, 1817, third ed. vol. i. p. 304.
2 D. C. Lathbury, Correspondence on Church and Religion of William Ewart Glad
stone, London, Murray, 1910, vol. i. p. 2.
3 John Brown, Vicar of Newcastle, A Dissertation on . . . Poetry and Music,
London, Davis and Reymers, 1763, p, 213.
1 88 ORGAN VOLUNTARIES AND MUSIC.
At Selby Abbey, in 1751, Dr. Pococke, an Irish bishop, notes:
This town is no corporation, and has neither clergyman nor justice of
the peace in it. They chant all their service, except the litany ; and the
clerk goes up to the Communion table and stands on the Epistle side to
make the responses, and they sing well not only the psalms but anthems.1
The expression Epistle side is unusual in England at this
period. As Dr. Pococke was an Irish bishop he may have heard
the phrase used by Roman Catholics in Ireland. The function of
the parish clerk may also be noted.
At a Berkshire village, Welford, in 1770 the church music is
praised.
I may here mention that at Welford their manner of singing Psalms is
particularly pleasing. The tunes are solemn but exceedingly melodious.
Mr. Archer's Steward, honest John Heath leads the set, with as agreeable
a voice as I ever heard. The game keeper plays upon the Hautboy, and
the gardener upon the Bassoon, and these, joined to eight or ten voices,
form a Harmony that strikes the attention most amazingly.2
Dr. Home, the Bishop of Norwich, while Dean of Canterbury
states that
In England, choral service was first introduced in this cathedral, and the
practice of it long confined to the churches of Kent, from whence it became
gradually diffused over the whole kingdom.3
More than twenty years after Dr. Brown, Dr. Vincent, who later
on was Dean of Westminster, describes some part of the church
music and the musicians. He says that in his time there were certain
churches and chapels where they appropriated a band of singers " to
chant the Psalms, Te Deum, &c. and who are competent enough to
perform an Anthem with sufficient accuracy ". These chapels, he tells
us in a note, were Portland Chapel, the Octagon Chapel at Bath,
now, in the twentieth century, turned into a furniture warehouse, and
some churches, he adds uncertainly, in Lancashire ; but here I have
reason for thinking he was well informed as to the chanting of the
psalms. He speaks highly of the Methodists' Music, and adds that
" for one who has been drawn away from the Established Church by
Preaching, ten have been induced by Music ".4
1 The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. J. J. Cartwright,
Camden Society, 1888, vol. i. p. 173.
2 Lady Alice Archer Houblon, The Houblon Family, Constables, 1907, vol. ii. p. 145.
3 George Home, Discourse II. on Church Music, in Works ed. by William Jones ,
Rivington, 1818, vol. iv. p. 25.
4 William Vincent, Considerations on Parochial Music, London, 1787, pp. 10 and 14.
A second edition appeared in 1790.
SERMONS. 189
DISTURBING THE MINISTER.
It is much to be desired that the faithful should join their voices
to the praises of God and to those parts of the service which they are
bidden to say with the minister ; but a bad practice surviving even
to our time had arisen in the eighteenth century or earlier of following
in an undertone the prayers set apart for the priest. Thus the
Spectator dislikes
the Disturbance some People give to others at Church, by their Repe
tition of the Prayers after the Minister, and that not only in the Prayers, but
also the Absolution and the Commandments fare no better, which are in a
particular manner the Priest's Office.1
So many complaints throughout our period are made of this
practice that it has not been possible, even if desirable, to note all
that have been met with. It was also common in the mid-nineteenth
century.
James Ford, writing about 1825, notes it.
When the Service begins, with your eye and not with your voice, reap
along with the Minister ; but never pretend to use any other prayers or medi
tations, whilst he is offering the prayers of the Church . . . what can be
more improper than to hear them promiscuously absolve themselves and
one another and thus take the Priestly office on themselves?2
This disagreeable practice of saying the words of the service after
the minister is not characteristic of Englishmen. In 1908, on Easter
Even, at Naples, the man kneeling next to me followed aloud the
blessing of the priest at the end of mass, and other parts of the
Latin service which he knew by heart.
SERMONS.
The Puritans, it will be generally acknowledged, thought that the
hearing of sermons was the main purpose of going to church ; and
inconsistently enough, such was their love of sermons, if they could
hear a Church of England sermon without attending the Church of
England service they would do so. There is an instance of this at
Canterbury in 1640 when they complain of the sermon being no
longer preached in the Sermon House, as they call the Chapter
House, but in the Quire, so " that all that will partake of the Sermon,
should of necessitie partake of their Cathedrall-Ceremonious- Altar
Service ".3
1 Spectator, No. 236. Friday, November 30, 1711.
2 James Ford, The new devout Communicant, Ipswich, 1825, p. 82.
3 Richard Culmer, Cathedrall News from Canterbury, London, Clifton, 1644, p. 2.
190 SERMONS.
After the Restoration there seems to have been a return to this
practice in the North. At the Visitation of his diocese in 1703 by
Dr. William Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle, he found at Ravenstondale
a Saints-Bell, and the Bishop was told that " this Bell used to be
rung in the Conclusion of the Nicene Creed ; to call in Dissenters
to Sermon ".1 They would not then be offended, either, by the sight
of a surplice. Can this have been one of the motives for preaching
the sermon in the black gown, and not in the surplice?
It seems possible that this relic of Puritanism survived late in
Yorkshire ; for a description of the Sunday morning service written, it
is pretended, before the battle of Waterloo, but plainly later, makes
the Sunday school children in a Yorkshire parish come to church
after the Litany and before the Communion service.2 It is more
likely to be a relic of Puritanism than a humane wish not to fatigue
the children with over-long devotions.
Sir William Blackstone entered the Middle Temple in 1741 and
there is this tradition of his experience :
The sermons which Blackstone heard, when he came as a young man
to London, were, he has told us, below the standard of the morality of
Plato or Cicero. He himself gave it as his opinion, that, for all that they
contained of religion, it would have been hard to say whether the preacher
believed in the Koran, the Talmud, or the Bible.3
These statements of Blackstone are said to be based upon
recollections of the table talk of Sir Robert Inglis. There is con
firmation of this in the paragraphs that follow.
How dissatisfied during our period churchmen were with the
Whigs may be seen by a tract designed to show the variance be
tween the book of Common Prayer and the Sermons of the
Latitudinarians, such as Blackstone may have heard.4 The tract
appeared in 1 767, and in numerous editions later on, of which the
last that I have been able to trace was printed at Lancaster in
1817. The Pulpit and the Reading Desk converse together. The
Reading Desk says to the Pulpit :
You have long been my sore Enemy, a public and private Foe to me,
and the whole congregation ; and if it be considered, the Harm we have
1 Miscellany Accounts of the Diocese of Carlile-^ ... by William Nicolson late
Bishop of Carlisle, edited by R. S. Ferguson, Cumberland Antiq. and Arch. Soc. London,
Bell, 1877, p. 42.
2 [Charlotte Bronte] Currer Bell, Shirley, ch. xxxiv.
8 John Campbell Colquhoun, William Wilberforce ; his friends and his times,
Longmans, 1866, p. no, ch. vi. on Hannah More.
4 A dialogue between the Pulpit and Reading Desk, London, W. Nicoll, 1767.
SERMONS. 191
all sustained, it would appear what Favour has been shewn you in not
stripping off your Gown, driving you out of the Church, and leaving you to
follow another kind of Business. The Evil you have done, I am sure the
whole World can never repair.1
The Whig shows how little he cares for the solemn assent and
consent that he has given to the Book of Common Prayer, or re
gards the teaching of antiquity :
PULPIT. Some have, indeed, great Veneration for the Fathers ; but for
my -part, I have not. I prefer the Authority of later Times, and depend
most on the Judgment of modern Authors.
On the next page Pulpit makes some remarks depreciating the
Bible. The Reading Desk asks in horror :
READING DESK. The word of God a stale unpolished Piece of Anti
quity ? 2
As to the assent given at Subscription.
PULPIT. I look on the Words as mere Form ; and I used them only
as a necessary Step to Preferment.
DESK. So, in order to get clear of Enthusiasm, you are not ashamed
to own yourself a Hypocrite. Who do you think will ever trust you again,
when you can so readily speak one thing and mean another ?
PULPIT. I regard nothing you are pleased to think of me. The
Multitude is on my Side, not yours.3
The cynic may remark that the history of the eighteenth century
repeats itself in the twentieth.
This little book that went through so many editions may be
looked upon as an important and interesting testimony to the value
widely set upon the Prayer Book in the eighteenth century as a
protection against latitudinarianism, and the low standard of morals
involved in a repetition with the mouth of formulae that are not be
lieved in the heart. Even a prae-Christian poet had a higher sense
of honour. His notion of duty was to hate as one would the gates
of hell the man who concealed one thing in his heart and uttered
another.4 The disgust which the laity felt at the behaviour of these
men is attested by the wide circulation, during fifty years, of the
little tract, which can hardly be accounted for if the readers were
confined to the clergy. The unhappy state to which those were re
duced who clung to their preferments in the Established Church
instead of going out into the wilderness was thus described in the
nineteenth century :
M dialogue between the Pulpit and Reading Desk, London, W. Nicoll, 1767, p. 4.
*ibid. pp. 17, 18. s ibid. p. 65. 4 Iliad, ix. 313.
192 SERMONS.
They were compelled Sunday after Sunday, to affirm in their reading
desk what they contradicted in their pulpit.1
What a position ! But the importance of keeping up the fixed
standard of orthodoxy that has come down from antiquity is hereby
made evident enough. And this scandalous state of affairs lasted to
the end of the century. For S. T. Coleridge, when a Unitarian
minister at Shrewsbury, describes clergy and laity as being divided
into two camps :
The Parsons of the Church of England, many of them, Unitarians and
democrats — and the People hot-headed Aristocrats — this is curious, but it
is true.2
So in the twentieth century. It is to the Houses of Laymen
that we look to save the Church, not to the Convocation.
In Dr. Johnson's time, too, the sermons cannot have been good
when this devoted Churchman could speak of the preaching in such
terms as these :
I am convinced (said he to a friend) I ought to be present at divine
service more frequently than I am ; but the provocations given by ignor
ant and affected preachers too often disturb the mental calm which other
wise would succeed to prayer. I am apt to whisper to myself on such
occasions — How can this illiterate fellow dream of fixing attention, after
we have been listening to the sublimest truths, conveyed in the most
chaste and exalted language, throughout a Liturgy which must be regarded
as the genuine offspring of piety impregnated by wisdom ? 8
Goldsmith, not so pious a son of the Church as Johnson, yet
complains of the English preachers : " Their discourses from the
pulpit are generally dry, methodical, and unaffecting ; delivered
with the most insipid calmness, " 4 and he then recommends the
French preachers as an example.
In the early nineteenth century an Edinburgh Reviewer opens
an article on Dr. Kennel's sermons thus :
We have no modern sermons in the English language that can be con
sidered very eloquent. . . . The great object of modem sermons, is to
hazard nothing : Their characteristic is decent debility.5
1 [William John] Conybeare, Church Parties, An Essay reprinted from the Edin
burgh Review, No. CC. for October, 1853. Longmans, 1854, P- 4-
2 Letter of S. T. Coleridge, British Museum, No. 29, Jan. 16, 1798. (Guide to the
Exhibited Manuscripts, Part i. 1912, p. 70.)
8 Anecdotes by George Steevens, in Johnsonian Miscellanies, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill,
Oxford, 1897, vol. ii. p. 319.
4 O. Goldsmith, Essays, iv. Globe edition of Works, Macmillan, 1869, p. 294.
6 Edinburgh Review, Edinb. 1803, vol. i. p. 83.
UNUSUAL PRACTICES. 193
Against this we may set Dr. Church's account of the sermons
delivered, by the old High Church school, in the first third of the
nineteenth century, just before the Tractarian movement began.1
UNUSUAL PRACTICES.
One or two oddnesses in the services may be spoken of here
for want of a better place.
There appears to have been a curious state of affairs in Spital-
fields in which Sir George Wheler, the Canon of Durham, is con
cerned. He had the reputation of being a high-churchman ; but
his acts if rightly reported do not much support this claim. Things
seem to have beer} done in a strange way. What was the Wicker
Basket or the Glass vessel for the elements at Communion ? What
explanation is there of giving the Eucharist to the unbaptized?
And is the "conformable Curate" the Luke Milbourne of the Dun-
dad? The Tabernacle is that spoken of by Paterson as " The Taber
nacle in White Lion yard, and facing Wheeler Street in Spittle^Ulds.
It's commonly called Wheelers Chapel, because it was built by Sir
George Wheeler Prebendary of Durham''
The Inhabitants of the Hamlet of Spittle-fields, Petition'd the Honourable
House of Commons.
# #• #
XI. We are not much verst in Rubricks or Canons. But we are sure
there are none for Praying before Sermon with the Face to the People till
the concluding Lord 's Prayer, and turning the Back, and repeating that towards
the Altar. No Kubrick enjoins us to begin Divine Service with Singing
Psalms, or to Use four in one Morning Service. No Kubrick ever order'd
the Wicker Basket or Glass Vessels, or the Time of the Clarks bringing them
at the Communion, or to read the Exhortation when the People are negligent,
from the Pulpit after Sermon, when solemn notice of the Communion had been
given from the Desk, at the proper Time before. No Kubrick ever order'd
the Priest to leave out the Gloria Deo in Excelsis after the Communion.
Nor to Sing a Psalm after Morning Sermon, while the Priest leaves the
Pulpit to put on the Surplice again, to read the Prayer for the Church
Militant at the Communion Table. No Kubrick allows to give the Eucha
rist to a Person unbaptized, and to defend the Action afterward in a Ser
mon, Nor to abuse the Hearers from the Pulpit, because they could not under
stand Nonsense in the Chamber. Not to call it an Insolent Affront to be
soberly desired, by a Priest of more than twice a Man's own Standing, to
Review and consider again an /// Worded Discourse (to call it no worse)
concerning the greatest Mystery of our Faith. No Kubrick teaches us to
forget the Athanasian Creed day after day, tho' admonish'd of it, when
1 See above, ch. i. p. 15,
194 UNUSUAL PRACTICES.
requir'd. Nor to Collect Money for the Poor at the Tabernacle- Door, and
refuse the Church- Warden an Account of the Disposal of it j And, because
there are no Rules nor Kubricks for these things, We remember not that
Mr. Milbourne our Conformable Curate even did them, and if he should,
we should approve them as little in Him as in any Other Person whatsoever.1
At the end of the seventeenth century these things described
may have shocked the faithful accustomed to law and order. Now
adays we are all accustomed to the omission of Gloria in excelsis
on certain days by one set of people, and of the Athanasian Creed
on others by a second set, both equally lawless. But it is a good
thing to find complaint made of the multitude of singing psalms,
or, as we have them to-day, of metrical hymns.
In the foregoing extract there is mentioned the carrying of the
elements to the altar in a wicker basket, as something reprehensible.
One has seen the pain benit carried about a French church in a
basket, and distributed thence to the faithful, but the two cases are
not precisely similar. More akin is the following, from a church in
Ireland, held up to scorn in a Roman Catholic journal.
The old Church of St. John the Baptist, Headford (co. Galway) is now
in a very dilapidated condition and the new incumbent is putting forth an
effort for its restoration. In this church during the last incumbency the
elements for Holy Communion used to be carried from the vestry up to the
Communion table in an old clothes-basket covered with a patchwork quilt?
The Rev. Henry Austin Wilson has suggested to me an
analogue of this wicker basket. In the inventory of Andrewes
Chapel there is a "Canistor for the wafers like a wicker basket, and
lined with Cambrick laced".3
Another complaint by parishioners appears in the first quarter
of the eighteenth century. In 1717 the inhabitants of Kew-Green
were much displeased with their minister on several counts. He
does not catechise, and gives no account of the sacrament money.
They want service on Wednesday and Friday, not said by a Deacon,
for so they " are deprived of the Benefit of Absolution," and they
desire the whole of the Exhortation to Communion to be read the
Sunday before. As he is non-resident they cannot have baptism
1A Vindication of the Case of Spittle-Fields, against an Uncharitable Paper, pri
vately Printed, called a True Narrative of the Case of Sir George Wheler etc. Humbly
offered to the Honourable House of Commons. [1694 ?]
2 Quoted in a letter to the Tablet, July 21, 1888, p. 97.
3 J. Wickham Legg, English Orders for Consecrating Churches, Henry Bradshaw
Society, 1911, p. Ixix.
FUNERALS. 195
when a child is in danger of death, or the blessed sacrament in the
latest hours of extremity.1
Their complaints all show a good Church tone. Contrasted with
the indifference nowadays, whether children shall die unbaptized,
or the grown-up parishioners without communion, we have an
edifying glimpse into the family surroundings in Church matters
during our period. Throughout the eighteenth century it will be
noticed, in descriptions of death-beds, how careful, in most cases,
the faithful are that communion shall be administered to the dying.
FUNERALS.
Next to say somewhat of funeral customs and rites.
Evelyn notes on May .13, 1680 a piece of asceticism worthy of
La Trappe :
old Mr. Shish, master shipwright of his Majesty's Yard here, an honest
and remarkable man, and his death a public losse ... It was the costome
of this good man to rise in the night, and to pray, kneeling in his own
coffin, which he had lying by him for many yeares.
Eleven years after the Restoration we find the following account
of the posies of evergreens distributed at funerals, and the doles
given to the tenants and poor in Westmoreland.
October 7, 1671, Mrs. Agnes Dudley dying at Yainwith-hall Oct. 5,
1671, early in the morning; she was buryed in Barton-church Oct. 7, 71,
& before her corps was carryed out of the house, the gentry had given each
of them, Posys of Lawrell and Rosemary, Bisketts and burnt Claret-wine,
and Papers of Sweetmeats ; Their servants had given them Bisketts and
burned Clared-wine. Her Tenants & their wifes had bread & cheese.
And the Poor had 2d a peice given them, which Doal came to 08. 05. o6.2
There is the same carrying of evergreens in a neighbouring
county. Bourne, speaking of the decent custom, that had come
down from antiquity, of following the corpse to the grave, notes
that
as this Form of Procession is an Elmblem of our dying shortly after
our Friend, so the carrying of Ivy, or Laurel, or Rosemary, or some of
those Ever-Greens, is an Emblem of the Soul's Immortality.
This bearing of green boughs seems to have been a general
custom in the North if not in all England. Of the practice of
1 The case and complaint in the year 1717 of the then Inhabitants of Kew-Grcen
against Mr. Thomas Fogg, London, 1743.
2 J. R. Magrath, The Flemings in Oxford, Oxford Historical Society, 1913, vol. ii.
p. 310.
'3*
196 FUNERALS.
accompanying the corpse to the church with psalms, he suggests
that it was not so universal, for he says :
There is another Custom used in some places, at the Procession of
Funerals, which pays a due Honour to the Dead, and gives Comfort and
Consolation to the Living ; and that is, the carrying out the Dead with
Psalmody.1
From a letter written by Mr. Henry Gandy, Hearne reports as
follows :
Mr. John Kettlewell (he says) dy'd on Friday; the 12 of April, 1695,
was bury'd in the Parish Church of Barkin (in the same Grave in which
Archbishop Laud was layd) on the i5th day of the same Month, the Right
Reverend Bishop of Bath and Wells (Dr. Tho. Kenn) performing the
Office in his Lawn Sleeves. He read the Confession and Absolution, then
the proper Psalms in the Office for buriall of the Dead, after that the
Magnificat, then part of the i5th Chapter of the ist. Ep. to the Corinthians,
the Lesson appointed. Then read the Evening Service, pray'd for the
King — and the Queen's, &c.2
Sir John Morden, Baronet, the founder of Morden College, who
died in 1708, left in his will the direction that he was to be buried
" without Pomp or Singing Boys; but: decently".3
A member of the Society for the Reformation of Manners was
barbarously murdered by three private soldiers in 1708.
He was accompanied to his Grave with about 30 Constables and
Beadles, and between 20 and 30 of the Reverend Clergy, all going before
his Corpse; and 12 Justices of the P-eace holding up the Pall, and im
mediately following it, and a great Train of other Gentlemen of Quality,
and among them some Aldermen of the City ; and lastly, above a Thousand
worthy Citizens and others conducting him to his Grave. It was a Sight,
said the aforesaid Preacher, at which, he was persuaded, the Powers of
Darkness did tremble.4
The funeral was at St. Clement Danes and the sermon preached
by the Rev. Thomas Bray, D.D.
Sir Richard Hoare's funeral on January 13, 1718-19 was attended
by the Governours of Christ's Hospital and the Blue Coat Boys, walking
before in Procession, singing of Psalms.5
1 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, pp. 19, 22.
2 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, vol. viii.
p. 256.
3 John Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, ed. John Strype,
London, 1720, Vol. I. book i. ch. xxvii. p. 220.
4 ibid. Vol. II. book v. ch. iii. p. 32.
5 Remarks and Collections of Tkomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1902,
vol. vi. p. 289.
FUNERALS. 197
and at Lady Holford's funeral, at the beginning of November in
1720,
the Blew- Coat Boys belonging to Christ - Hospital walk'd before the
Corps in Procession, singing of Psalms, and 27 Clergymen attended at the
Funeral.1
Some time it would seem after 1710 Samuel Wesley, the father
of John Wesley, recommends the suppression of " the new custom
of burying by candlelight ".2 This very likely was an imitation by
the poor of their richer neighbours.
Hearne describes Lord Stafford's funeral at Westminster Abbey
on May 19, 1719. He was buried in
a Coffin covered with Crimson Velvet and drawn in an open Charriot,
followed by a prodigious Number of Mourning Coaches and Lights.8
and on March n, 1720-1 he says of the Duke of Buckingham
shire's funeral
In the Abbey they were received by the Dean and Chapter in their
Copes, the whole Choir, in their Surplices, singing before the Corpse.4
At the funeral of King George the Second, the Dean and
Prebendaries were in their copes, attended by the choir, all having
wax tapers in their hands.5
At the Duke of Gloucester's funeral in 1805, the choir and
clergy attended, each holding a wax light.0
In 1732 at the funeral of the senior bencher of Gray's Inn at
St. Andrew's Holborn there were provided amongst other things :
8 Large Plate Candlesticks on stands round the body. i. o. o.
43 Ibs. of Wax Lights and Tapers at 2/8 5. 14. 8.
100 white wax branch lights, and 100 men in mourning to carry them
at 5/6. 27. 10. 7
Pope, describing the sumptuous funeral of a miser, says :
When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend
The wretch, who living sav'd a candle's end.8
1 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1902,
vol. vii. p. 189.
2 A. F. Messiter, Notes on Epworth Parish Life in the Eighteenth Century, Elliot
Stock, 1912, p. ii.
3 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1906,
vol. vii. p. ii.
4 ibid. p. 226. 5 Annual Register, 1760, Chronicle, p. 181, London, 7th ed. 1783.
6 ibid. 1805, Chronicle, p. 416, August.
'Quoted in R. E. C. Waters, Parish Registers in England, London, Roberts, 1883,
P- 53-
8 A. Pope, Moral Essays, III. 291.
198 FUNERALS.
In 1746 there is an account of a sham funeral, six Ghosts all
in white with wax tapers in their hands.1
Speaking of her funeral and lying in state Mrs. Montagu re
marks : " The torches and the crowd about my dead body would
give me neither light nor amusement ".2
In 1769 about January 14 it is recorded that Mrs. Mead, the
mother of Jack Wilkes' wife, had died, and that the corpse was
" attended to the grave by 116 men carrying lights".3
In 1821, a clergyman speaking of the funerals in his parish says :
I believe it now very rarely happens that a funeral does not take place
by day-light, except in cases where persons have died of the small-pox, or
any other infectious disorder. I found my parishioners, at my first coming
to my parish, inclined to make them latish, and, once, candles were brought
in to give the singers light to see the words of their psalm.4
But the parson managed to put a stop to this. It seems more
likely that these " psalms " were Sternhold and Hopkins rather
than the ritual psalms of the Order for the Burial of the Dead.
Beau Nash, "the King of Bath," died on February 3, 1761, and
thus the ceremonies at his funeral are described :
About five the procession moved from his house : The charity-girls,
two and two preceded; next the boys of the Charity-School, singing a
solemn occasional hymn ; next a large band of music, sounding at proper
intervals a dirge ; three clergymen immediately preceded the coffin.6
We are not often told when the funeral sermon was preached ; but
at Dr. Parr's funeral
A sermon was also preached by the Rev. Dr. Butler, Vicar of Kenil-
worth and Head Master of Shrewsbury School. This was introduced after
the reading of the lesson.6
A suicide is traditionally said to be buried with a stake in the
body. There is a record of such at Epworth in 1791 or 1792.
A woman named Poll Pilsworth had poisoned some children, and
being found out she poisoned herself.
The people would not permit her to be buried in the churchyard.
The inhabitants were all in a muster about this poisoning, not knowing
1 British Magazine for the year 1746, vol. i. p. 282.
2 Elizabeth Montagu, The Queen of the Bluestockings, ed. Emily J. Climenson,
Murray, 1906, vol. ii. p. 202.
3 Annual Register, 1769, January 14, Chronicle, p. 66.
4 Medicina Clerica, London, Seeley, 1821, p. 136.
5 New Bath Guide, 1784, p. 63.
6 New Monthly Magazine, 1825, Part iii. p. 185.
FUNERALS. 199
where it would end. She [Mrs. Ingram, the witness] saw the coffin taken
on the sledge. She was in the crowd, and could not get close to the grave.
They drove two stakes through the body. She (Mrs. Ingram) saw them
lift the mell, or big hammer, " to drive the stakes through her, poor thing ! " l
In N.E.D. mellis defined as a heavy hammer or beetle of metal
or wood ; cf. malleus or mallet.
A later instance is recorded in 1812, in the description of the
burial of a murderer and suicide :
The stake was immediately driven through the body, amidst the
shouts and vociferous execrations of the multitude, and the hole filled up
and well rammed down.2
The practice of burying a suicide in the cross-roads continued
till 1823 : a son had murdered his father and then killed himself.
The warrant for the interment of the unfortunate parricide in the cross
road was issued by the coroner . . . [the grave was] at the cross-road
formed by Eaton Street, Grosvenor Place, and the King's road.3
A graduate of the University of Oxford, a layman, has suggested
to me that in view of the increase of suicide in these latter days, it
is almost a matter for regret that all signs of horror at the crime
have been discontinued at the burial.
About 1730 a resident in the Isle of Man made these notes :
When a Person dies, several of his Acquaintance come to sit up with
him, which they call the Wake. The Clerk of the Parish is obliged to
sing a Psalm, in which all the Company join ; . . . The Procession of
carrying the Corps to the Grave, is in this manner : When they come with
in a Quarter of a Mile of the Church, they are met by the Parson, who
walks before them singing a Psalm, all the Company joining with him. In
every Church-Yard there is a Cross, round which, they go three Times,
before they enter the Church.4
In Wales in the eighteenth century, a bishop of St. Asaph notes :
The night before a dead body is to be interred, the friends and neigh
bours of the deceased resort to the house the corpse is in, each bringing
with him some small present of meat, bread, or drink, (if the family be some*
thing poor,) but more especially candles, whatever the family is ; and this
night is called w$l nos, whereby the country people seem to mean a watching
night. Their going to such a house they say is i wilio corph^ i.e., to watch
1 A. F. Messiter, Notes on Epworth Parish Life in the Eighteenth Century, Elliot
Stock, 1912, p. 79.
2 Annual Register, 1812, London, Rivington, 1825, Chronicle, p. 4.*
slbid. 1823, Chronicle, p. 142.*
4 George Waldron, A Description of the Isle of Man, contained in Compleat Works,
folio, no place or name, 1731, second pagination, p. 170.
200 FUNERALS.
the corpse ; but wylo signifies to weep and lament, and so wyl nos may be
a night of lamentation. While they stay together on these nights, they are
either singing psalms or reading some part of scripture.
Whenever anybody comes into the room where a dead corpse lies,
especially the wyl nos, and the day of its interment, the first thing he does
he falls upon his knees by the corpse and saith the Lord's prayer.
Pence and half-pence, in lieu of little rolls of bread, (which heretofore
generally and by some still are given on these occasions,) are now distributed
to the poor, who flock in great numbers to the house of the dead before
the corpse is brought out. When the corpse is brought out of the house,
and laid upon the bier, and covered before it be taken up, the next of kin
to the deceased, widow, mother, daughter, or cousin, (never done by a man,)
gives cross over the corpse to one of the poorest neighbours two or three
white loaves of bread and a cheese with a piece of money stuck in it, and
then a new wooden cup of drink, which some will require the poor body
that receives it immediately to drink a little of. When this is done, the
minister (if present) saith the Lord's prayer, and then they set forward to
wards church. And all along, from the house to the church-yard, at every
cross way, the bier is laid down, and the Lord's prayer renewed ; and so
when they come first into the church-yard, and before any of the verses
appointed in the service to be said.
In some places there is a custom of ringing a little bell before the corpse
from the house to the church-yard. If it should happen to rain while the
corpse is carried to church, 'tis reckoned to bode well for the deceased,
whose bier is wet with the dew of heaven. When a corpse is carried to
church from any part of the town the bearers take care to carry it so that
the cross may be on their right hand, nor will they bring the corpse to the
church-yard any other way but through the south gate. There is also a
custom of singing psalms on the way as the corpse is carried to church.
At church nothing is done but as directed by the rubric, besides that,
evening service is read with the orifice of burial. At those words, " we com
mit this body to the ground," the minister holds the spade and throws in
the earth first.
The minister goes to the altar and there saith the Lord's prayer, with
one of the prayers appointed to be read at the grave ; after which, the con
gregation offer upon the altar, or on a little board for that purpose fixed to
the rails of the altar, their benevolence to the officiating minister. A friend
of the deceased is appointed to stand at the altar, observing who gives, and
how much. When all have given, he tells the money with the minister, and
signifies the sum to the congregation, thanking them for all their good will.
The people kneel and say the Lord's prayer on the graves of their
lately deceased friends for some Sundays after their interment, and this is
done generally upon their first coming into the church, and after that they
dress the grave with flowers.1
1 From a MS. book of a Bishop of St. Asaph, written about a century before publi
cation in British Magazine, 1835, vol. vii. p. 399. Cf. Thomas Pennant, A Tour in
Wales, London, White, 1784, vol. ii. p. 338.
FUNERALS. 201
Pennant speaks further of Welsh funerals :
Offerings at funerals are kept up here, and I believe in all the Welsh
churches. A disgusting, and in cases in which the deceased may have died
of an infectious distemper, a dangerous custom, often prevails, of the corpse
being brought into the Church during divine service, and left there till the
congregation is dismissed.
That excellent memento to the living, the passing-bell, is punctually
sounded. . . . The canon (6 7) allows one short peal after death, one other
before the funeral, and one other after the funeral. The second is still in use,
and is a single bell solemnly tolled. The third is a merry peal, rung at the
request of the relations.1
1 Thomas Pennant, The History of the Parishes ofWhitefordand Holy well, London,
White, 1796, p. 99. " Disgusting" has often in the eighteenth century more the sense
of being displeasing, than of being abhorrent. It is used in this way by Dr. Johnson.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI.
DESCRIPTION OF CHILDREN'S SERVICE AT BATH IN 1787.
[Letter of Serena Holroyd to Maria Josepha, Bath, August 4, 1787, in the Girlhood
of Maria Josepha Holroyd, ed. Jane H. Adeane, Longmans, 1896, p. 17.]
IT was at our Cathedral, which we call the Abbey. I daresay you have
heard of Sunday Schools. It is but lately we have had that institution
here, and at first it went on slowly ; but by joining it to a School of Industry,
they now all crowd to the other, which is a necessary step to that of industry.
There is a clergyman employed for this Sunday evening service for the
children alone, after the other common service is over, and it is in the great
Isle where you must suppose nine hundred children in perfect order, placed
on benches in long rows, so quiet that could hardly have heard a pin drop
while the Clergyman was reading. Reflect how very extraordinary this
circumstance alone ! when you recollect that most of them were taken out
of the streets, untaught and actually almost savage, cursing, swearing, and
fighting in the streets all day, and many without a home at night. Two
girls, I myself know, slept in the street. Most of them not only ragged
and starving, but without a chance of being put in the way to earn their
bread. Yet here I saw them, not only in such order, but so well instructed
as to have most of the service by heart ; for though they had books, I ob
served they scarce looked at them, and yet repeated the responses per
fectly, aloud. At one instant also, without direction to do so, the nine
hundred dropped on their knees and rose again, which showed they knew
what they were about ; their little hands lifted up and j oined together,
looking with such innocent devotion. They sang the Psalms, all in time
with the organ by heart, and notwithstanding the number, the sound was
neither too loud nor too harsh, but on the contrary, soft and affecting beyond
measure.
202
CHAPTER VII.
OBSERVANCE OF CERTAIN CHURCH SEASONS.
THE observance of the Christian year is one of the most profit
able of the Church's institutions ; yet it was abhorred by the Puri
tans, mainly for the same reason that they rejected other things,
because they found it in existence and it had the claim of antiquity.
CHRISTMAS.
Christmas was a feast which in England had always been a
season of rejoicing, and of showing good-will towards all men.
Nevertheless, during the Rebellion the observance of the festival of
Christmas, as the Church bids us, was not allowed It was turned
into a fast, or no notice was taken of the day. This was very ill
borne, and a reaction set in immediately.1
Mr. Pepys observes the unusual decorations at the first Christ
mas kept after the Restoration, for on Dec. 23, 1660 he finds his
pew decked with rosemary and bays.
The "sticking of Churches" at Christmas with green boughs
went on during our period, and is thus described by the Spectator :
our Clerk, who was once a Gardiner, has this Christmas so over-deckt
the Church with Greens, that he has quite spoilt my Prospect, insomuch
that I have scarce seen the young Baronet I dress at these three Weeks,
though we have both been very constant at our Devotions, don't sit above
three Pews off. The Church, as it is now equipt, looks more like a Green
house than a place of Worship : the middle Isle is a very pretty shady
Walk, and the Pews look like so many Arbours of each Side of it. The
1 " 1647, Dec. 29, News came of a great Disorder and tumult in Canterbury, about
the Observation of Christmas-day, the Major endeavouring the Execution of the Ordin
ance for abolishing holy-days, was much abused by the rude multitude, had his head
broken, and was dragged up and down, till he got into an house for his safety . . .
like Insurrections were in several other places of the Kingdom." [Bulstrode White-
locke,] Memorials of the English affairs [K. Charles I. to K. Charles II.] London,
Ponder, 1682, p. 286. See also Canterbury Christmas, London, Humphrey Howard,
1648: and The Declaration of many thousands of the City of Canterbury , Lond. 1647.
203
204 CHRISTMAS.
Pulpit itself has such Clusters of Ivy, Holly, and Rosemary about it, that
a light Fellow in our Pew took occasion to say, that the Congregation
heard the Word out of a Bush, like Moses}-
In the North the decking does not seem to have been so well
known.
Another Custom observed at this Season, is the adorning of Windows
with Bay and Laurel. It is but seldom observed in North, but in the
Southern-Parts, it is very Common, particularly at our Universities ; where
it is Customary to adorn, not only the Common Windows of the Town,
and of the Colleges, but also to bedeck the Chapels of the Colleges, with
Branches of Laurel ?
So Gay, speaking of Christmas, treats these evergreens as well-
known decorations in 1716 :
Now with bright holly all your temples strow
With laurel green and sacred mistletoe.3
In 1721, Thomas Lewis speaks of the custom in use in his day of
garnishing the churches " with Flowers and the Branches of Trees," 4
not, however, it may be noted specially at Christmas.
Horace Walpole attends Prince Edward to the new Magdalen
House for penitent women :
This new convent is beyond Goodman's-fields, and, I assure you,
would content any catholic alive . . . Lord Hertford ... led the prince
directly into the chapel, where, before the altar was an arm-chair for him,
with a blue damask cushion, a prie-Dieu^ and a footstool of black cloth
with gold nails. We sat on forms near him. There were lord and lady
D — in the odour of devotion, and many city ladies. The chapel is small
and low, but neat, hung with gothic paper, and tablets of benefactions.
At the west end were enclosed the sisterhood, above an hundred and thirty,
all in greyish brown stuffs, broad handkerchiefs, and flat straw hats, with a
blue riband, pulled quite over their faces. As soon as we entered the chapel,
the organ played, and the Magdalens sung a hymn in parts ; you cannot
imagine how well. The chapel was dressed with orange and myrtle, and
there wanted nothing but a little incense to drive away the devil, — or to
invite him. Prayers then began, psalms, and a sermon.5
The orange and myrtle were probably holly or other evergreens,
1 Spectator, No. 282, Wednesday, January 23, 1711-12. The letter is dated Jan
uary 14, 1712, the day after the Octave of the Epiphany.
2 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. 136.
3 John Gay, Trivia, Book i. line 441, from Poems, ed. J. Underhill, London, Rout-
ledge, 1893, vol. i. p. 143.
4 Thomas Lewis, The obligation of Christians to beautify and adorn their Churches,
London, John Hooke, 1721, p. 23.
5 Letter cxix. January 28, 1760, to George Montagu. (Works, London, Radwell
and Martin, 1818, vol. vi. p. 192.)
CHRISTMAS. 205
remains of the greenery at Christmas, not taken away till Candle
mas. Orange and myrtle have a more genteel, Italian, or exquisite
sound than holly ; orange is not likely to have been imported for
this purpose from the south.
For some twenty years at the end of the nineteenth century I
had to pass the winter at Cannes, and near the port and market
there was a little French chapel, decked at Christmas quite after the
fashion of the Spectator's church. A tall fir tree filled up the little
pulpit. There was no creche, such as nearly all the parish churches
around had ; but the greenery was quite after the arrangement
which Washington Irving might have seen at Bracebridge. In his
description of an English Christmas he introduces the parson re
buking the sexton for using mistletoe among the greens with which
the church was adorned.1
Christmas was one of the times for a general communion
throughout our period. In 1714 there were two celebrations at St.
James' Piccadilly, St. Martin's in the Fields, St. Mary Magdalen
Bermondsey, St. Anne's Soho, at 7 and 12. At St. Dunstan's in
the West " every day in the Octaves of Christmas" at 8 after morning
prayers. It may be taken for granted that where Paterson says the
Eucharist is celebrated on " the solemn occasion " or other like expres
sion, Christmas day is included as well as Easter and Whitsuntide.
Christmas was also a time when the members of the University
were expected to receive Communion at Oxford. Just before the
Revolution Anthony Wood notes that the new papist did not re
ceive the Sacrament in the College chapel.2
Dr. Felton rode out of Oxford at 8 o'clock in the morn
ing one Christmas Day,3 and thus set no edifying example to those
who remained at Edmund Hall. He should have met Parson
Adams who severely rebukes a youth for travelling on Christmas
Day.4 But Hearne himself is not free from blame in this matter,
for on the Christmas Day of 1713 he had done just as Dr. Felton
did.5
1 Washington Irving, The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall, Dent, 1906,
p. 41.
2 Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society,
1894, v°l- "i- P- 2O2«
3 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol.
viii. p. 310.
4 See below in this chapter, p. 245.
5 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol.
iv. p. 280.
206 CHRISTMAS,
Christmas was observed at the English Court by a curious
offering of a wedge of gold called a Byzant. The author of Festa
Anglo-Romana writes :
This is a Grand day in His Majesties Court, and one of the Houshold-
days, when the Besant is to be given by the Lord Steward, or one of the
White-Staff Officers.1
In 1738 there is a London letter dated Dec. 26 saying that the
day before the King had received Communion.
His Majesty at the Altar made his Offering of a large Wedge of Gold,
called the Byzant, according to ancient Custom.2
Again in 1 747 :
Dec. 25. Being Christmas -day, the same was observed at court as a
high festival. . . . His majesty made an offering at the altar of a wedge of
gold, commonly called the Byzant.3
But the last time I find this recorded is in 1765.
Dec. 25. [Their majesties] received the sacrament . . . after which
his majesty made the usual offering, at the altar, of a wedge of gold called
the Byzant.4
Hospitality was a great feature in the English Christmas.
Here in England, during the twelve Days of Christmas, the Nobility
and Gentry retire to their respective Seats in the Country ; and there, with
their Relations, Neighbours, and Tennants, keep Carnavals in their own
Houses, Hospitality, Musick, Balls, and Play as much during this Season
all over England, as in any Kingdom whatever.5
Sir Roger de Coverley, "after the laudable custom of his
Ancestors, always keeps open House at Christmas"*
Stukeley tells us of a strange custom at York with mistletoe on
Christmas Eve.
The custom [? of cutting mistletoe] is still preserved in the north, and
was lately at York, on the eve of Christmas-day they carry mistletoe to
the high altar of the cathedral, and proclaim a public and universal liberty,
pardon and freedom to all sorts of inferior, and even wicked people, at the
gates of the city, toward the four quarters of heaven.7
The statement is somewhat confused ; and we are not told by
what officers the mistletoe was taken to the high altar of the
minster at York or by whom the pardons were proclaimed.
1 Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 128.
2 Whit-worth's Manchester Magazine, January 2, 1738-39.
3 British Magazine, 1747, Dec. p. 561.
4 Annual Register, 1765, Dec. 25, Chronicle, p. 152.
5 A Journey through England, London, 1723, third ed. vol. i. Letter ii. p. 25.
6 Spectator, No. 269, Jan, 8, 1711-12.
7 William Stukeley, The Medallic History of Marcus Aurelius Valerius Carausius,
Book II. London, Corbet, 1759, p. 164.
CHRISTMAS. 207
There was and perhaps still is in Wales a practice which may
have taken its rise from the Mattins and Mass said at Midnight
before the Reformation. Plygan is cockcrow ; and the first Mass
of Christmas is called Missa in galli cantu.
Christmas Ply gain.
Upon Christmas day in the morning, about three of the clock, most
of the parishioners meet in the church, and after prayers and a sermon,
they continue there singing psalms and Welsh hymns with great devotion
and earnestness till 'tis broad day ; and if any through age or infirmity are
disabled coming to church, they never fail to have prayers and carols on
our Saviour's nativity at home.1
Almost the same words are used by Pennant, speaking of Re
ligious Customs ; 2 so that the question arises whether one may
not be borrowing from the other.
In Mrs. Thrale's Tour in Wales with Dr. Johnson from the 5th
of July to the 29th of September 1774, we read :
Monday August i .... In our return from this place we saw Whit-
church, where, as at all Churches in this valley, lights are kindled at 2 in
the morning on every Xmas Day and songs of joy and genuine gratitude
are accompanied by the Harp and resound to the cottages below, whose
little inhabitants rousing at the call hasten and chuse a convenient place
to dance till prayer time which begins at sunrise and separates the dancers
for a while.3
This fuller account of the Christmas Plygan is given by the
Rev. Elias Owen writing in 1886.
On Christmas morn, tradition says, the church bell was rung in Cilcen
from five to six o'clock, at which latter hour the service began. In other
parishes the hour was four. The service usually consisted of a selection
of appropriate portions of the Prayer Book, with or without a brief ad
monitory address by the clergyman, and then the carol-singing began.
Any one who desired to sing was at liberty to do so. Sometimes a party
sang in chorus, and sometimes a single voice was heard, and this service
of song was continued until the dawn of day, when the Benediction was
pronounced, and the congregation separated.
Those who took part in the carol-singing supplied themselves with their
own home-made candles, but the church authorities partially lit up the
church for the occasion. As there were formerly no evening services in
1 From a MS. book of a Bishop of St. Asaph, written about a century before pub
lication : printed in British Magazine, 1835, vol. vii. p. 401.
2 Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Wales, 1770, London, White, 1781, vol. ii. p. 339.
3 A. M. Broadley, Doctor Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, London, John Lane, iqio, p.
186.
208 CHRISTMAS.
the churches, and the gosper or vespers began at three o'clock in the after
noon, when no lights were required, it was necessary that the churchwardens
should provide candles and candlesticks for the Plygan on Christmas morn.1
Mr. J. E. Vaux reports as follows :
I learn from the Rev. S. C. Baker that an ancient custom of having a
celebration at six o'clock on Christmas morning is kept up at Usk in
Monmouthshire. The country people come in from distant parts of the
parish to this early service, and some communicate who do not at other
times. It is called " Pwlgwm " in Usk, in other places " Plygain ".2
And further on he says :
A lady at Swansea has informed me that at St. Peter's Church,
Carmarthen, an early service used to be held on Christmas morning within
the memory of persons now living. The church was lighted with coloured
candles, carried thither on that occasion by the congregation.3
Not unlike the custom in Wales is the custom in the Isle ofMan.
On the 24th of December, towards Evening, all the Servants in general
have a Holiday, they go not to Bed all Night, but ramble about till the
Bells ring in all the Churches, which is at twelve aclock ; Prayers being
over, they go to hunt the Wren . . . after which Christmas begins. There
is not a Barn unoccupied the whole twelve Days, every Parish hiring Fidlers
at the publick Charge.4
The author of Festa Anglo-Romana is no very sure antiquary,
and his description of what went on in his own time is not always to be
trusted, as when he makes the King offer gold, frankincense, and
myrrh on the feast of the Circumcision, instead of the Epiphany ; yet
his ideas may be those of the people. Thus he writes of Christmas :
The Latin or Western Church nam'd it Luminaria^ or the Feast of
Lights ; because therein were used abundance of Lights and Tapers ; or
rather, (as some conceive) because Christ the Light of Lights ; the true
Light then came into the World.5
But it is truly the name in the East for the Epiphany rather
than for Christmas.
The real reason for such an abundance of artificial light would
seem to be the period of the winter solstice, at which the festival is
1 Ellas Owen, Old Stone Crosses of the Vale of Clwyd, Quaritch, 1886, p. n.
2 J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore, London, Griffith Farran, 1894, p. 61.
3 ibid. p. 222.
4 George Waldron, A Description of the Isle of Man, contained in Compleat Works,
no place or name, 1731, second pagination, p. 155. Waldron was a revenue officer in
the Isle of Man so that he had good opportunities for noting the customs of the Manx
population.
5 Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 127.
EPIPHANY. 209
celebrated, when the days are short and dark. But be this as it may,
luminaria is not a frequent name for Christmas in the West.
Manchester in the middle of the eighteenth century was a very
focus of High Church practices. One of these was the lighting of
the branches that hung in the quire of the Collegiate Church for the
hour of evensong during the Twelve Days of Christmas. How far
into the eighteenth century this custom goes back is not well known.
But in the nineteenth century were taken away altogether the branches
that hung in the nave, and those that hung in the quire were re
legated to the ambulatory. Yet these latter are still lit from Christ
mas Eve to the Epiphany.1 If the date of the first appearance of
the candelabra be 1696, the custom of lighting them for the Twelve
Days of Christmas can hardly be earlier.2
Lighted candles seem to be connected with Christmas in Wales
as well as at Manchester. A correspondent with the initials A. R.
and writing from C roes wy Ian, Oswestry, notes as follows :
When I was a boy, the colliers at Llwynymaen, two miles from the town,
were in the habit, during the evenings of Christmas week, of carrying from
house to house in Oswestry boards covered with clay, in which were stuck
lighted candles.8
A writer with the initials A. E. L. L. says :
Until the last few years, the village children of Hucknall Torkard,
Notts ... on Christmas Eve used to carry with them a large doll, placed
in a box decorated with sprigs of holly.4
He adds that the children had no idea that this represented our
Lord in the manger.
The Pickwick Papers, with their complete disregard of Christmas
as a religious festival, may represent the practice in some families in
England towards the end of the period. Yet we have Miss Austen
giving us a welcome contrast to Dickens when she says " though
Christmas Day, she could not go to church ".5
The Epiphany, that great festival of the Church, older than
Christmas, yet so much neglected in our time, was, during some part
of our period at least, much thought of.
1 See Mr. Henry A. Hudson's valuable paper on The Christmas Lights at Manchester
Cathedral, published in the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian
Society, vol. xxix. 1912.
2S. Hibbert, History of the Foundations in Manchester, London, Pickering, 1834,
vol. ii. p. 285.
3 Notes and Queries, 1873, Dec. 13, p. 471. 4 ibid. 1877, Dec. 22, p. 486.
5 Jane Austen, Emma, ch. xvi. towards end. Emma was written before 1816.
14
2io EPIPHANY.
The Twelfth- Day it self is one of the greatest of the Twelve, and of more
jovial Observation than the Others, for the visiting of Friends and Christmas-
Gambols. . . . But tho' this be generally the greatest of the Twelve, yet
the others preceding are observed with Mirth and Jollity, generally to Excess.1
Also in the Chapel Royal :
Tuesday being Twelfth Day, the same was observed at Court as a High
Festival ... at noon His Majesty, their Royal Highnesses the Prince
and Princess of Wales, the Duke and the Princess Amelia, preceded by
the Heralds and Pursuivants at Arms, went in State to the Chappel Royal,
and during the Offertory his Majesty advanced to the Altar, and according
to ancient Custom of the Kings of England, offered three purses filled
with Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. . . . There was a very numerous
and splendid Appearance at Court on this Occasion.2
1761 is the last year in which I have found a record that the
gold, frankincense, and myrrh were offered on Twelfth Day by the
King in person.
Jan. 6. His majesty went to the chapel royal, and offered gold, myrrh,
and frankincense as usual.3
When Dr. Horsley was Bishop of Rochester, he issued in a
charge of 1800, recommendations for the services to be held in the
more populous villages. He is by no means over exacting in his
requirements, yet he directs, amongst other days, that the church
ought certainly to be open on the Epiphany. It is to be feared
from this that the festivals and fasts of the Church were at that time
as he expresses it, "gone much into oblivion and neglect".4 This
is part, no doubt, of the influence of the Calvinistic Evangelical
Movement.
Christmas seems to have had two endings during our period.
One is Twelfth Day. Mr. Pepys on Jan. 6, 1662-3 declares
This night making an end wholly of Christmas, with a mind fully satis
fied with the great pleasures we have had by being abroad from home.
We may contrast the pleasure-loving Pepys with the savage-
minded Dean, who ends Christmas at Candlemas. Swift writing to
Stella on Feb. 2, 1711-12 says:
This ends Christmas, and what care I ? I have neither seen, nor felt,
nor heard any Christmas this year.5
1 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, pp. 151-152.
2 Manchester Magazine, January 13, 1746-7.
3 Annual Register, 1761, Chronicle, Jan. 6, p. 60.
4 Samuel Horsley, Charges, Dundee, 1813, p. 161, Charge at Rochester in 1800.
5 Journal to Stella, Feb. 2, 1711-12, in Works, ed. by Walter Scott, Edinburgh,
Constable, 1814, vol. iii. p. 30.
LENT. 211
Also a somewhat different end and beginning to Christmas may
be given. Musick and Revelling are allowed in the Inns of Court
on All Saints and Candlemas Days, one being the first and the
other the last day of Christmas.1 In the North, Bourne says
With some, Christmass ends with the Twelve Days, but with the Gen
erality of the Vulgar, not till Candlemass?
In the strict household of Dr. Granville, the Dean of Durham
before 1689, it was ordered that there should be no playing at
tables or dice all the year long, nor any playing at cards, but be
tween All Hallows Day and Candlemas.3
This is a matter of some three months, fully a quarter of the
year, long enough one would think for recreation of this kind.
Candlemas at Ripon seems to have been observed by way of
anticipation :
The Sunday before Candlemas-day the collegiate church, a fine antient
building, is one continued blaze of light all the afternoon by an immense
number of candles.4
This has been copied by a later writer and it has become con
fused in the end :
At Rippon, on the Sunday before Candlemas Day, the Collegiate
Church is still one continued blaze of light all the afternoon, an immense
quantity of candles being burnt before it.5
Nothing is known of this practice at the present moment by
persons who lived in Ripon in the middle of the nineteenth century.
In Nottinghamshire it was the custom on the eve of Candlemas to
decorate the churches and houses with branches of box, and to light
up a number of candles in the evening, beingthe last day of Christmas.6
LENT AND HOLY WEEK.
Lent began to be kept again immediately with the Restoration.
Mr. Pepys gives us many notices of it. On March 7, 1659-60 he
says it is Ash Wednesday, and begins Lent with a fish dinner. The
next year Ash Wednesday falling on Feb. 27, 1 660-6 1 he says :
lFesta Anglo-Romana by a True son of the Church of England, London, Jacob,
1678, p. 14.
z Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. 157.
3 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 155.
Gentleman's Magazine, 1790, vol. Ix. p. 719, Aug. 18. Signed : Riponiensis.
5 Time's Telescope for 1815, London, Sherwood, 1815, p. 43, under note on Feb
ruary. There is nothing about Ripon in the almanack for 1814.
6 J. E. Vaux, Church Folklore, London, Griffith Farran, 1894, p. 226.
14*
212 LENT.
I called for a dish of fish which we had for dinner, this being the first
day of Lent ; and I do intend to try whether I can keep it or no.
We are curious to learn how long this good resolution lasts. The
next day we read :
Notwithstanding my resolution, yet for want of other victuals I did eat
flesh this Lent but am resolved to eat as little as I can.
On the sixth of March he has " a good Lenten dinner ". On the
loth, a Sunday, "a poor Lenten dinner of coleworts and bacon".
He does not tell us how he made bacon a Lenten dish. Perhaps he
ate flesh as it was Sunday. On Good Friday (April 12, 1661) a
fish dinner. Before another Lent (Feb. 23, 1662-3) he goes to see
a play at Court, because it is likely to be the last acted before
Easter. On March 8 the chapel at Whitehall is hung with black,
and no anthem sung after sermon. The next day he dines with
the Lord Mayor, "a great Lent dinner of fish little flesh". On
April 17, Good Friday, his dinner is "only sugar-sopps1 and fish;
the only time that we have had a Lenten dinner all this Lent ".
This is a great falling ofY in his practice of little austerities.
On Dec. 1 2, 1 663 there is a strange entry :
We had this morning a great dispute between Mr. Gauden, Victualler
of the Navy, and Sir J. Lawson, and the rest of the Commanders going
against Argier, about their fish and keeping of Lent ; which Mr. Gauden so
much insists upon to have it observed, as being the only thing that makes
up the loss of his dear bargain all the rest of the year.
Lent kept in this fashion could do good to nobody ; but when a
man of Pepys' character, a presbyterian Royalist, thinks it well to
appear to keep Lent in this outward fashion we have some evidence
that the season was widely observed in London.
Leaving Mr. Pepys and his superficial observance of Lent, it may
be well to consider how far the practice of fasting, and observance
of the days of fasting and abstinence set out in the Book of the Com
mon Prayer were retained by Churchmen at large during our period.
It would not be looked for that a cookery book could throw
much light upon Church customs ; but a certain Mrs. Hannah
Wolley, or Woolly (she spells her name in many fashions) wrote a
work which seems to have been highly popular. Published in 1670,
1 Sugar-Sops was a drink. " Take what quantity of Beer or Ale you think fit, boil
it and scum it, then put to it some Currans (or none at all) slices of fine Manchet, large
Mace, Sugar or Honey." (T.P. J.P. R.C. N.B. The English and French Cook, London,
Miller, 1674, p. 414.)
LENT. 213
there was a second edition in 1672 ; and I quote from a fifth, pub
lished in 1684. The title is :
The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet stored with all manner of rare receipts for
Preserving, Candying and Cookery. . . . London, Chiswel and Sawbridge, 1684'
In the second part, No. 287, there is a receipt given for a suit
able Dish for Lent. At the end of this part are a number of Bills of
fare according to the different seasons : for example, A Bill of
Service for extraordinary Feasts in the Summer ; then Another
Bill of Fare for Winter Season ; a Bill of Fare for lesser Feasts.
But now we come to meagre diet, A Bill of Fare for Fish Days and
Fasting-Days in Ember-week, or in Lent. This is followed by A
Bill of Fare without Feasting, in winter and in summer. Then
there is A Bill of Fare for Fish-Days in great Houses and at familiar
times, which is followed by a shorter bill of fare, for Gentlemens
Houses upon Fish-Days, and at Familiar Times}
It is not likely that all this would have been set out at length in
a book of many editions, if there had been no use for the directions
for meagre days. And it seems a fair inference that the custom ol
making some change in diet on the days prescribed by the Church
was at the time widely spread.
In his parish of Coles-Hill to which Ketlewell was presented
in 1682 it is said that
He was a Religious Observer of all the Festivals of the Church, which
had been much neglected in his Parish before his Time, as indeed they
were almost everywhere throughout the Kingdom. He observed likewise
the Days of Fasting and Humiliation, both those appointed by the Church,
and those which were enjoyned by the Civil Authority. Wednesdays and
Fridays in Lent, he abstained from Flesh, and Drank small Beer, according
to the Canon ; he failed not to bid all Publick Holy Days, and had Prayers
both upon them, and their Eves, as also upon Saturdays in the Afternoon.2
When Mrs. Godolphin was Maid of Honour she drew up a rule
of life and this is part of her resolution as to fasting :
" . . . On Festivall evens I resolve to dyne att home, and to repeat
all the psalmes I know by heart " (of which she had almost the whole
psalter,) "reserveing my reading or part of my prayers till night ; and supp
with bread and beere only.
1 There is another cookery book of the same period in which Lenten dishes are
given, and this is The English and French Cook, by T.P. J.P. R.C. N.B. (London,
Simon Miller, 1674). It has on p. 372 " All manner of Potages for Lent " which
" are made and seasoned as these for the fasting days, only this excepted, that you put
no Eggs in them ". On p. 382, there are Dishes proper for Good Friday, and on p.
387 " for any Friday ". On p. 434, are bills of fare for fish days, Ember weeks, or Lent.
2 Memoirs of the Life of Mr. John Ketlewell, London, 1718, p. 66.
214 LENT.
" On Frydayes and Wednesdaies I'le eat nothing till after evening
prayer; and soe come downe as soone as ever the Queene has dyned,
without goeing to visitt, till my owne prayers are finished." l
In Mrs. Astell's proposed community all the fasts of the Church
were to be observed : that is Lent, Ember days, Rogation Days,
Vigils and Fridays.2
Ambrose Bonwicke, the pious Cambridge undergraduate,
writes thus to himself:
Remember to observe all Lent with abstinence and retirement, and
interruption of visits ; and the Wednesdays and Fridays therein, together
with the holy passion-week, with strict fasting. Observe all vigils with
abstinence and prayer, as also Embers and Rogations, and all Fridays in the
year with strict fasting.3
More than the Prayer Book requires was also recommended ;
the Wednesday as well as the Friday was to be kept :
Serve God publickly with Fastings and Prayers upon the Wednesdays
and Fridays of the whole year.*
Wednesday and Friday were specially to be observed with
prayer according to Dr. Seeker, afterwards Archbishop of Canter
bury, as " the stationary days of each week," 5 which in this age
are more commonly called the station days.
Besides Wednesdays and Fridays as days of fasting Annand
tells us that
Some also abstain on Saturday in memorial of that sorrow that was
upon believers while our Saviour lay in the grave.6
This was the case in 1662 at Jesus College, Cambridge. John
Strype writes home to his mother, describing his diet :
Sometimes, neverthelesse, we have boiled meat, with pottage ; and
beef and mutton, which I am glad of ; except Fridays and Saturdays, and
sometimes Wednesdays ; which dayes we have Fish at dinner, and tansy
or pudding for supper.7
1 The life of Mrs. Godolphin by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p.
22.
2 [Mary Astell,] A serious proposal to the Ladies, etc. London, 1696, p. 61.
3 Life of Ambrose Bonwicke by his Father, ed. by John E. B. Mayor, Cambridge,
Deighton, 1870, p. 26.
4 Edward Felling, The good old way, ]. Edwin, 1680, p. 92.
5 Thomas Seeker, Eight charges, London, 1771, p. 76, in the Second Charge.
6 W. Annand, Fides Catholica, London, Brewster, 1661, p. 257.
7 Charles Henry Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, Cambridge, Warwick, 1845, vol.
iii. p. 504.
LENT. 215
It may be noted that at Winchester College Saturday was
a day of abstinence up to 17 n.1 The English Roman Catholics
must have kept Saturday as a meagre day up to 1775 or 1776 ; for
Dr. Nugent would order on Friday or Saturday an omelet for supper
at the Literary Club.2
When Dr. Granville, the Dean of Durham, kept house at his
Parsonages, they must have resembled convents more than ordinary
families. The fasting days, Lent, Ember days, Vigils, Rogation
Days were all most strictly observed.3
On April 24, 1723 Hearne notes:
Among other Customs that Dr. Felton hath altered at Edmund Hall,
is the breaking off Fast Nights on Fridays. For, whereas there did not use
formerly to be any Suppers there on that day, he hath now ordered the
contrary, and makes the Bell to be rung as at other set Supper times.4
This is evidence that Hearne looked upon Friday as a fast day, as
one of the two meals was taken off; not a day of abstinence merely.
William Law holds fasting to be a part of the duty of every
Christian.
No Christian who knows anything of the Gospel, can doubt whether
fasting be a common Duty of Christianity, since our Saviour has placed it
along with secret Alms, and private Prayer.5
Fielding presents a self-satisfied person at the judgement gate,
pleading his observance of fast days.
The second [applicant] exhibited that he had constantly frequented his
church, been a rigid observer of fast days.6
About 1767, Dr. Hildesley, Bishop of Sodor and Man from
1755-72, saw to the observance of Lent and Fasting days at Sher-
burn Hospital. There are fifteen vigils of holidays, and six
Wednesdays in Lent, on which they have but a pound of pudding ;
and on Good Friday they have only sugar sops.7
1T. F. Kirby, Annals of Winchester College, London, Frowde, 1892, pp. 379-381.
See also p. 322.
2 H. L. Piozzi, Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, second ed. London, Cadell,
1786, p. 122.
3 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 156.
4 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1907, vol.
viii. p. 69.
5 William Law, A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, ch. vii. ed. by J.
J. Trebeck, Spottiswoode & Co., 1902, p. 169.
6 H. Fielding, A Journey from this world to the next, ch. vii. in Works, ed. by
Murphy and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. iv. p. 368.
7 Weeden Butler, Memoirs of Mark Hildesley, London, Nichols, 1799, pp. 148-
150. For composition of sugarsops, see footnote above on p. 212,
216 LENT.
It will be remembered that in 1750 there were earthquakes
succeeding one another with such an amount of periodicity that
Horace Walpole in his flippant way proposed that the bark should
be taken against them.1 So in 1756 a fast day was ordered by the
authorities, and a journalist wishing to mock the indifferent into a
better behaviour remarks that
persons of fashion, who are above the law, will I doubt pay as little regard
to this nominal fast-day as to Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, or the long
exploded 3Oth of January.2
There was a public fast in 1 740, and a journalist takes occasion
to rebuke a manner of fasting that has nothing painful in it.
[People] cannot, I think, easily imagine that this Duty consists merely
in Abstinence from Beef and Mutton, or any other Flesh, while they riot
in all the Delicacies which Fish and Vegetables can afford them ; no, tho'
they should give an entire Holyday to the Cooks, and refuse all Manner
of Sustenance, during 24 Hours ... A total Forbearance of all Diversions
will be likewise insisted on, not only of public Entertainments, which will
not be permitted by the Government, but all private Parties, as Cards,
Dancing or any other Merriment.3
In the same number a protest is made against mere fish eating.
All these methods of keeping a Fast without abstinence, mortification,
or self-denial are mere quibbles to evade the performance of our duty and
entirely frustrate the design of appointing the solemnity.
This is just the old Tractarian teaching which I have heard
insisted upon when a boy.
It is also exactly the teaching of the holy Bishop of Sodor and
Man.
526. Fasting. From pleasant meates, rather than from all, as it would
answer the Ends of Mortification, in not gratifying the Palat, nor ministring
to Luxury, so it would agree with every constitution, and answer the objec
tion That my Health will not suffer me to Fast.4
An example of the way in which in Evelyn's time the Friday
fast (not mere abstinence) was kept by the clergy is given in his
note on Feb. 20, 1671-72. Dr. Breton had died on Feb. 18 :
on the Friday, having fasted all day, making his provisionary sermon for
the Sunday following, he went well to bed, but was taken suddenly ill,
and expir'd before help could come to him.
1 Letters of Horace Walpole . . . to Sir Horace Mann, London, 1833, 2n^ e^-
vol. ii. p. 354, April 2, 1750.
z Connoisseur, No. 106, Feb. 5, 1756.
3 Champion, Tuesday, January 8, 1739-40, vol. i. p. 166.
4 Thomas Wilson, Maxims of Piety and Morality, No. 526 in Works, Oxford, J.
H. Parker, 1860, vol. v. p. 438. See also No. 1055, Fasting and Temperance, p. 486.
LENT. 217
The powers of staying without food expected of the average
man at this period are shown in the Friday fast of Lake's Officium
Eucharisticum. The communicant is told to rise at 5, "if your
Health will permit you ". He is then to be occupied with private
prayers and self-examination up to 1 1 when he goes to Church ;
at noon he returns and begins private prayers again, with a recapi
tulation of self-examination. This being finished at 3, the penitent
betakes himself to Evening Service, when if the conscience be not
satisfied he may open his " Grief by Confession" and "receive the
benefit of absolution ". Then returning to his closet he occupies
himself in prayers until 7 when
Thus disposed you are ready for your Supper by Seven a Clock, whereto
notwithstanding your long Abstinence, you must not let loose your Appetite ;
but eat as sparingly as at other times.1
The food when taken is to be mean and ordinary, such as a crust
of bread, a little wine, or a glass of small Beer, etc.
The same belief in power to fast is shown in 1 748 in the Rules
for diet at a school founded by John Wesley at Kingswood. On
Fridays they had vegetables and dumplings for dinner, no meat as
on other days, and there is added " And so in Lent ". But part of
the rule is :
On Friday, if they choose it, they fast till three in the afternoon. Ex
perience shows that this is so far from impairing health that it greatly con
duces to it.2
Who, nowadays, would think of asking growing children to do
without food till three o'clock in the day? and for the forty days of
Lent as well ?
Speaking of the duty of giving alms to the poor the Spectator says :
Eugenius prescribes to himself many particular Days of Fasting and
Abstinence, in order to increase his private Bank of Charity, and sets aside
what would be the current Expences of those Times for the Use of the Poor.3
Thus it was not to be the overflowings of the purse merely
that were to be given as alms ; but the product of what was saved
by austerities on fasting days ; the abstinence from flesh meats or
pleasant food being also enforced.
Of Shrove Tuesday, Bourne says :
1 Lake's Officium Eucharisticum, p. 48.
2 The History of Kingswood School . . . by three old boys, London, Kelly, 1898,
p. 25.
3 Spectator, No. 177, September 22, 1711.
2i8 LENT.
This Custom of confessing to the Priest at this Time, was laid aside
by our Church at the Reformation : For Sins are to be confess'd to
God alone, and not to the Priest, except when the Conscience cannot
otherwise be quieted : Then indeed the Grief is to be opened to the
Spiritual Guide in private, That by the Ministry of God's Word^ he may
give [? receive] the Benefit of Absolution?-
The remainder of the Exhortation before Communion in the
Book of Common Prayer follows.
The Public Penance that preceded Lent is remembered by
Thorndike.
And for this Exercise, [Penance] the time of Lent hath always been
deputed by the Church. The Fast before the Feast of the Resurrection
stands by the same Law, by which that stands. For, the Feast was, from
the beginning, the end of the Fast. So, the Z^«/-Fast, and the keeping
of the Lords day, stand both upon the same authority. For, the Lords
day is but the Remembrance of the Resurrection once a week.2
The beginning of Lent must have been a time for Communion.
In 1686 Anthony Wood notes that Obadiah Walker, turning papist,
had not " received the sacrament I. Sunday in Lent".3
The services of Ash Wednesday must have been well attended
by the people when a worldling like Horace Walpole could take it
for granted that the generality would understand a jest upon the
Commination Service.
The penalty of death came over as often as the curses in the Commin
ation on Ash-Wednesday.4
Swift, while manifesting his impatience at the restraints of Lent,
bears witness to the keeping of the season in Queen Anne's time.
Writing to Stella on March 5, 1711-12 he says :
I wish you a merry Lent. I hate Lent ; I hate different diets, and
furmity and butter, and herb porridge ; and sour devout faces of people,
who only put on religion for seven weeks.5
Next year he dines with Lord Abingdon on Ash Wednesday.
(Feb. 18, 1712-13.)
1 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. 180.
2 Herbert Thorndike, Just Weights and Measures, London, Martin, etc. 1662,
p. 121, ch. xviii.
sLife and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society,
1894, vo1- "i- P- I7&
4 Horace Walpole, Memoires of the last Ten Years of the Reign of King George the
Second, London, Murray, 1822, vol. i. p. 32.
5 The works of Jonathan Swift, ed. by Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh, Constable,
1814, vol. iii. p. 55.
LENT. 219
We did not dine till seven, because it is Ash Wednesday. We had
nothing but fish, which Lord Stawell could not eat, and got a broiled leg of
a turkey. Our wine was poison ; yet the puppy has twelve thousand pounds
a year. His carps were raw, and his candles tallow.1
Swift is scandalised not so much at the dinner on Ash Wednesday
as at the bad entertainment.
It will be noticed how late the dinner was on Ash Wednesday.
This was part of the discipline, for only one meal had to be taken on
a fast day, the usual hour for dinner in Queen Anne's time being
still about mid-day. In the same way, on January 16, 1711-12
Swift notes :
This being fast day, Dr. Freind and I went into the city to dine late, like
good fasters.2
That only one meal was to be eaten on a fast day we see by the
rules set out by authority. For example: In 1665 during the time
of the plague, an additional fast was prescribed for the Wednesday,
and these were the rules to be observed :
All persons (children, old, weak, and sick folk, and necessary Harvest-
labourers, or the like, excepted) are required to eat upon the Fast-day, but
one competent and moderate Meal ; and that towards night, after Evening
Prayer ; observing sobriety of Diet, without superfluity of riotous fare ; re
specting necessity and not voluptuousness.3
In 1676 Anthony Wood tells us how he kept Lent.
27 Mar. <Easter Monday> I returned from Weston. I went there 27
Jan. (Th.) ; kept a Lent which I never did before ; not eat a bit of flesh from
Shrove Tuesday (Feb. 8) till Easter day (26. Mar.).4
Looking back upon the evidence offered as to the custom of
fasting, it does not appear that in the seventeenth or eighteenth
centuries the distinction between fasting and abstinence was better
known to Churchmen than in the prae-Reformation Church of
England. All Fridays appear to have been fast days, only one
meal being allowed.
John Byrom sends his sister a poem on the keeping of Lent,
which begins :
1 The works of Jonathan Swift, ed. by Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh, Constable,
1814, vol. Hi. p. 169.
3 Ibid. p. 16.
3 A Form of Common Prayer, together With an Order of Fasting for the Averting of
Gods heavy Visitation, set forth by His Majesties Authority. London, John Bill and
Chr. Barker, 1665, leaf A. i.
4 Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical Society,
1892, vol. ii. p. 341.
220 LENT.
Dear Mrs. Phebe, if you will keep Lent,
We must, the Parsons say be abstinent.1
and he proceeds to forbid not only flesh-meats but eggs and fish,
with wine, beer, and spirits.
Bishop Butler, preaching on the first Sunday in Lent, alludes
to the mourning clothes which in his day were worn :
Repentance, the outward show of which we all put on at this season.2
A near kinswoman of my own, who was a girl at school when
the Royal George went down at Spithead in 1782, always wore
black during Lent.
The Rev. J. R. Hill, S.P.G. Missionary at Banda in India,
tells me that a relative of his who died in 1874 aged 83, could re
member that in her girlhood all the women of the village of Yapton,
near Arundel in Sussex, wore black in Holy Week.
In 1804 we read that the Endeavour Society widely distributed
two well-written papers, one of which was on the observance of
Lent. This latter is reprinted in full in the Orthodox Churchman's
Magazine. It is an urgent exhortation to the keeping of the Lenten
fast, noting that the Church had already appointed a weekly fast
on Friday.3
A little later in the nineteenth century a preacher could remind
his hearers of the Christian seasons, Advent, Ascension Day, and
the like. In Lent he says :
Of the various seasons of devotion which our religion prescribes, the
season of Lent is at once the most solemn and the most salutary. . . .
Over the wide extent of the Christian world, it reminds us that all the holy
and the good are engaged in the same purifying work of self-examination.4
As a device for continuing everyday pleasures while pretending
to keep Lent, and as an instance of the importance of calling things
by unobtrusive names, we have the ironical advice of a clerical poet :
In Lent, if Masquerades displease the town,
Call 'em Ridottd's, and they still go down.5
A Ridotto was much the same thing as a Masquerade.6 Thus
1 Poems of John Byrom, Chetham Society, edited by A. W. Ward, 1912, vol. iii. p. 6.
2 Fifteen Sermons, VI. in Works of Joseph Butler, ed. W. E. Gladstone, Oxford,
1896, vol. ii. p. 119.
3 The Orthodox Churchman's Magazine and Review, London, 1804, vol. vi. p. 163.
4 Archibald Alison, Sermons, Edinburgh, 1815, sec. ed. vol. ii. p. 356.
5 James Bramston, The Man of Taste, Reprinted at Dublin, Geo. Faulkner, 1733,
P- 13-
6 See N.E.D. under Ridotto.
HOLY WEEK. 221
in our time invitations to a really large and fashionable ball in
Lent have been sent out under the name of a little dance.
In 1/50, the Bishop of London, Dr. Thomas Sherlock, con
demns the opening of so many places of amusement in his diocese
during Lent.
Fifteen Places of Diversion [are] advertis'd in one News-Paper, at
which the innocent are too often seduced, and which will give foreign
Churches a strange Idea of the Manner in which Lent is kept in this
Protestant Country.1
In 1800 a journalist remarks of Covent Garden Theatre that
"as usual in Lent, this theatre has been opened for the performance
of oratorios at play house prices".2 And some years after, it would
seem that during Lent the theatres in London were closed for plays,
at least on Wednesdays and Fridays, as late as 1825. For
Samuel Leigh in his guide to London says :
Les Mercredis et Vendredis soirs pendant le Careme, on donne a Drury-
Lane et a Covent-Garden des concerts spirituals, et on execute des
morceaux choisis de musique: ces soirs-la aussi sont ouverts les petits
theatres, pour 1'exhibition des figures mecaniques.3
In our time we have seen plays permitted in Holy Week, and
now on Ash Wednesday, the last trace of the Christian practice
being obliterated by the Government.
In Daniel Turner's private prayers (he was a physician by pro
fession, and died in 1741) there is "A prayer to be used throughout
the holy season of Lent, and other set days of Fasting," and follow
ing are prayers for Passion Week, Easter, Whitsunday and
Christmas.4
According to Festa Anglo-Romana, Holy Week was the name
given early in our period to the week beginning on Palm Sunday.5
Some have imagined that in the days before the Reformation, Holy
week was not called Passion week. There is good evidence to the
contrary. For example, at St. Stephen's Walbrook they had "a
harrow for tenebris Candles, in passion weke," in the inventory of
Dec. 13, 1558, and thus under Queen Mary Tudor.6
The mention of tenebrcs makes it sure that it is Holy Week.
1 Mitre and Crown, March, 1750, p. 274.
2 British Magazine, 1800, March, p. 273.
3Nouveau Tableau de Londres de Leigh, Londres, 1825, p. 279.
4 British Museum MS. 14,404, ff. 32 — 34.
5 Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 40.
6 Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archceological Society, 1881, vol. v. p.
337-
222 HOLY WEEK.
Earlier, in the same century, in 1 506, pilgrims embarked on the
Wednesday in Passion week and landed next day, in France, on
Maunday Thursday.
Firste, the Wednysday at nyght in Passyon weke that was the viij. day
of Apryll in the .xxi. yere of the reygne of our soueraygne lord kynge Henry
the .vij. the yere of our Lorde God .M.D.vj., aboute .x. of the cloke the
same nyght, we shypped at Rye in Sussex, and the nexte daye, that was
Shyre Thursdaye, aboute noone, we landed at Kyryell in Normandy.1
Holy Week was certainly used as one name for the week before
Easter. Dr. Edward Lake speaks of the Gospels for the Holy week?
Dr. Edward Bernard of The holy weeke before Easter?
The famous John Partridge, in spite of Swift's announcement of
his death, pretends to be still alive in 1769, and publishes an al
manack for that year, Merlinus Liberatus. The fifth Sunday in
Lent is called Passion Sunday, but there are no indications that the
week following was called Passion week. That name for the week
after Passion Sunday seems to have been brought in by the ecclesio-
logists of the nineteenth century. It ranks with words like crosier for
the Archbishop's cross, stole for scarf, superaltar for gradine, and the
like.
Dr. Horsley in his charge to the clergy of Rochester in 1 800
speaks plainly about the keeping of certain feasts and fasts :
There can be no excuse for the neglect of the feast of our Lord's
Nativity, and the stated fasts of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, even in
the smallest country parishes ; but in towns and the more populous villages,
the church ought certainly to be opened for worship on the forenoon at
least of every day in the Passion- week.4
He adds to these the Epiphany, of which notice has been taken
under that day, and the Mondays and Tuesdays in the weeks of
Easter and Whitsuntide, and there is included a pious wish for
other festivals.
In Holy Week Swift vents his spleen, but it gives us a view of the
way in which this week was kept by the more part. It is Easter
Even, April 4, 1713.
This Passion week, people are so demure, especially this last day.5
*The Pylgrymage of Sir Richard Guylforde, ed. by Sir Henry Ellis, Camden
Society, 1851, No. 51, p. 3.
a Edward Lake, Officium Eucharisticum, p. 35, the Preparation on Friday.
3 In a book of Common Prayer, Bodleian Library, press mark : (C. P. 1686. c. i) Dr.
Bernard has written these words in the upper margin of signature b. vii.
4 Samuel Horsley, Charges, Dundee, Rintoul, 1813, p. 160. B ibid. p. 198.
HOLY WEEK. 223
On arriving at Holy Week the Spectator calls attention to the
custom that
this Week is in a manner set apart and dedicated to serious Thoughts.1
In the same way, at the approach of Easter, Johnson's numbers
of the Rambler become very nearly sermons. No. 7 written on the
Tuesday in Holy Week 1750, speaks of the "Solitude, which the
institutions of the church call upon me, now especially, to men
tion". And on April 6, 1751, No. no is devoted to the duty of
penitence. On April 5, 1760
[the last Idler, No. 103.] is published in that solemn week which the Christian
world has always set apart for the examination of the conscience, the review
of life, the extinction of earthly desires, and the renovation of holy purposes.
This was written in the despised eighteenth century, but most
holy seasons have been forgotten in the twentieth, except for pur
poses of amusement.
MAUNDY THURSDAY.
On April 4, 1667 being Maundy Thursday, Mr. Pepys remarks
that the King did not wash the feet himself but the Bishop of London
did it for him. This statement is borne out by the form and order
contained in the Appendix to this chapter which it is quite possible
may be that for the first Maundy of King Charles II.
In King George the Second's time the ceremonial washing of the
feet was continued :
His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, Lord High Almoner, per-
form'd the annual Ceremony of washing the Feet of a certain Number of
Poor in the Royal Chapel, Whitehall, which was formerly done by the Kings
themselves, in imitation of our Saviour's Pattern of Humility.2
And again in 1736 :
Yesterday being Maunday Thursday, the rev. Dr. Gilbert, subalmoner,
in the absence of the Archbishop of York, distributed at Whitehall to 53 poor
men and women, his Majesty's alms. . . . His Grace the Archbishop of
York washed the feet of so many poor persons in Duke Street chapel : he
was assisted by the Rev. Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Harter.3
On Maundy Thursday, April 3, 1740, it is announced that
This Day His Majesty's Alms of Linnen, Woollen, Shoes and Stockings,
for one Shift . . . will be distributed to 5 7 poor Men and Women by Dr.
1 Spectator, No. 23, Tuesday, March 27, 1711.
3 Gentleman's Magazine, 1731, April, p. 172, April 15.
3 Grub Street Journal for April 23, 1736, No. 331. (British Museum, Burney Col
lection, 306 b.)
224 HOLY WEEK.
Gilbert, Sub-Almoner to the King ; Who is likewise to wash their Feet, (if
not already done to his Hand) in Imitation of that Humility, which is so
great a Satire x etc.
GOOD FRIDAY.
In 1706, Thomas Hearne has one of his party notes :
The Queen having order'd Good Friday to be kept strictly in London,
'twas accordingly observ'd in a most decent and Religious Manner by all
Friends of the Church, but very negligently and disrespectfully by the Pres
byterians and the rest of that Brood.2
In the first half of the eighteenth century Good Friday was
noticed in the contemporary journals. We read in one :
The approaching Anniversary of that Great Day, on which he [Our
Lord] finish 'd the Work of our Redemption.3
And there follows a sort of sermon for Good Friday. Jour
nalists commonly know the taste of the public for whom they cater,
and unless there had ' been well-disposed people in abundance, the
writer would not have ventured on such an article.
On Good Friday, April 4, 1735, Byrom wandered about
considering how little the day is regarded ; met Mr. Parker, and went with
him to the Temple church.4
It is somewhat hard to make out how Good Friday was kept
in London after the passing of the influence of the reign of Queen
Anne. In 1775 Boswell complains to Johnson that one dis
advantage arising from the immensity of London was that there
was no fear of censure for not observing Good Friday as it ought
to be kept, and as it is kept in country towns. Here Boswell
testifies to the day being properly kept in English country towns.
Johnson replies to him that it was on the whole well observed even
in London.5
There must have been a certain amount of observance of Good
Friday, for it was attacked in an insolent tract published in 1777.
Good Friday is a rebel against the king of kings, and always when
1 Champion, 1743, sec. ed. vol. ii. p. 71.
2 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1885, vol.
i. p. 208.
3 The Wanderer, Thursday, April 18, 1717.
4 Richard Parkinson, The Private Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom,
Chetham Society, 1857, vol. i. part ii. p. 575.
*BoswelVs Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. ii. p. 356.
HOLY WEEK. 225
loyal subjects approach him the traitor lurks behind, skulks among popes
and priests, and hides his guilty head in a cowl.1
Later on he appeals to the ashes of Burnets and Hoadlys and
Lardners.2
But Dr. Pusey writing about 1833 tells us that Good Friday
was formerly but ill kept in the country :
It is within the memory of man, that the yearly Commemoration of
our Blessed Saviour's death was in country congregations very generally
omitted. This solemn day is now, I trust, almost universally observed.3
Miss Reynolds, the sister of Sir Joshua, writes thus of Dr.
Johnson :
In Lent, or near the approach of any great festival, he would generally
retire from the company to a corner of the room, but most commonly be
hind a window-curtain to pray ... At these holy seasons he usually
secluded himself more from society than at other times, at least from
general and mixed society, and on a gentleman's sending him an invitation
to dinner on Easter-eve he was highly offended.4
But his morbid dread of being alone, which impelled him to
seek solace in the company of those quite below his own intelligence,
caused him to break this rule of retirement. In 1778 he writes
on Good Friday :
It has happened this week, as it never happened in Passion Week
before, that I have never dined at home, and I have therefore neither
practised abstinence nor peculiar devotion.5
On the last two days of Holy Week his fasting was severe : on
Good Friday 1773 he writes:
1 Lewis Carbonell, The History and the Mystery of Good Friday, London, Fielding
and Walker, 1777, p. 23 [? a dissenting minister, Robert Robinson].
zibid. p. 56.
3 E. B. Pusey, Tracts for the Times, No. 18. Thoughts on ... Fasting, post
script.
4 Miss Reynolds, Recollections of Dr. Johnson, in G. Birkbeck Hill, Johnsonian
Miscellanies, Oxford, 1897, vol. ii. p. 257. The careful editor says that "There is
nothing to show that he kept any part of Lent but Passion Week " ; but surely he has
forgotten that Mrs. Piozzi says that " Mr. Johnson, though in general a gross feeder,
kept fast in Lent, particularly the holy week, with a rigour very dangerous to his
general health". (Hesther Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson,
London, Cadell, 1786, p. 91.)
In confirmation of Miss Reynolds' statement about Easter Even, may be remem
bered a letter to Dr. Taylor : " On the last day of Lent I do not willingly go out ".
(Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. by G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1892, vol. i. p. 188.)
5 Prayers and Meditations, composed by Samuel Johnson, ed. Geo. Strahan, London,
Cadell, 1785, p. 157. In the year 1781, he dined twice with bishops in Holy Week.
See Boswell's Life on April 12 for his excuses.
226 HOLY WEEK.
On this whole day I took nothing of nourishment but one cup of tea
without milk ; but the fast was very inconvenient.
On Good Friday 1775 :
We breakfasted ; I only drank tea, without milk or bread . . .
Boswel and I went to church, but came very late. We then took tea, by
Boswel's desire; and I eat one bun, I think, that I might not seem to
fast ostentatiously.
On Easter Even he writes :
After the bread and tea [for breakfast] I trifled, and about three ordered
coffee and buns for my dinner ... I then went to Evening Prayer and
was tolerably composed.
Of the Good Friday of 1776 he says :
I fasted, though less rigorously than at other times. I, by negligence,
poured milk into the tea, and, in the afternoon drank one dish of coffee
with Thrale.
In 1782, therefore when 73 years old, he says :
Good Friday. After a night of great disturbance and solicitude, such
as I do not remember, I rose, drank tea, but without eating and went to
church.
The next day, Easter Even :
I was faint \ dined on herrings and potatoes.
The contempt which Johnson has met with at the hands of
writers like Macaulay and Cowper for refusing milk and butter on
Good Friday and Easter Even, is quite undeserved. Once grant
ing the position that on fasting days some change is to be made in
diet, it seems reasonable enough that a man like Johnson would
conform to the rules that Christians have observed from early times,
some rules more severe than others, but the least severe being ab
stinence from the flesh of warm-blooded quadrupeds, and of all that
comes from them. Thus butter and milk are forbidden, and in re
fusing them Johnson was only following the Christian tradition.
Macaulay does not understand this, and laughs at " sugarless tea " ;
tea, coffee, and sugar, being vegetable in origin, would not have been
forbidden by any rule.
Edward the Sixth at the most Protestant moment that England
has ever seen, gave a dispensation, which must therefore have been
thought necessary, to Sir Philip Hobby, allowing him to eat during
Lent, and on other fasting days, flesh and milk foods (carnibus et
lacticiniis)}
1 Thomas Rymer, Fcedera, London, Churchill, 1713, vol. xv. p. 291.
EASTER. 227
An Irish clergyman visiting London on Good Friday makes
this note :
Good Friday, April 14, 1775, N. B. [Dr.] Dodd did not read the
Communion service rubrically, for he kneeled at the beginning, and tho'
it was a fast day, he and his coadjutors wore surplices.1
Montagu Robert Melville, sixty years later, advised that on
fast days there should be no organ played and no surplices worn,
except by those who read prayers, and at the altar. The preacher
was to wear gown and hood on these days only.2
The first edition oft the Christian Year by the Rev. John Keble
was published in 1827 but contains no verses for the Restoration.
The third edition, in 1828, contains the poems now printed after
the Commination, and a note upon the verses for the Restoration :
The organ is silent in many Churches during Passion week : and in
some it is the custom to put up evergreen boughs at Easter as well as at
Christmas time.
EASTER.
There is evidence that throughout our period the Communion
at Easter was well attended.8
In remote districts like Llanasa in Wales, we are told by a
writer in the nineteenth century, the Rev. Elias Owen, that
Celebrations of the Holy Communion took place in this parish on
Good Friday, Easter Eve, Easter-Day, and Easter Monday.4
The same writer earlier in the book says :
The parish clerk of Derwen tells me, and I have heard the same thing
in other parishes, that at Easter-tide all the adults in the parish were in
the habit of partaking of the Holy Communion. There were three cele
brations at that season, one on Good Friday, one on Saturday, and one on
Easterday. In some parishes I have also heard of a celebration on Easter
Monday.5
Easter was also a time for giving alms. Narcissa, under which
name the reigning Duchess of Hamilton is supposed to be depicted,
Gave alms at Easter, in a Christian trim,
And made a Widow happy, for a whim.6
Thomas Campbell, Diary of a, visit to England in 1775, Sydney, 1854, p. 71.
2 Montagu Robert Melville, Reform not subversion ! a proposed book of Common
Prayer, London, Roake and Varty, 1834, P- 93> Canon xxv.
3 For some figures giving the attendance, see ch. ii. p. 38.
4 Elias Owen, Old Stone Crosses of the Vale of Clwyd, Quaritch, 1886, p. 97.
5 ibid. p. 45.
6 Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, II, v. 57. Globe ed. 1869, p. 237.
228 ROGATIONTIDE.
The same duty is noted as practised at Court.
Last Sunday being Easter Day, his Majesty, their Royal Highnesses
the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Princesses, were at the Chapel
Royal and made their Offering at the Altar according to annual Custom,
for the Benefit of the Poor.1
According to Festa Anglo-Romana this is also a day for the
offering of the Besant.2
Concerning the custom amongst the vulgar to rise early and go out
into the fields to see the sun dance on Easter Day, Bourne says the
origin of the habit is that
devout and holy Men did, in the best Ages of the Church, rise early in
the Morning of the Resurrection.3
The early rising should be to meditate seasonably on the Resur
rection of Christ, not as the vulgar do to see the sun dance.
ROGATIONTIDE.
The Rogation Processions may be noticed, for they were continued
throughout the whole of our period.4 There are many witnesses to
their persistence.
The following notes represent the etymological ideas prevalent
soon after the Restoration.
The solemnization of Matrimony is prohibited by the Holy Church
from the first day in this Week, until Trinity Sunday following. The
Belgians or Dutch-mvc\ call it Cruys- Week, that is, Cross-Week ; and so
'tis also nam'd in some Parts of England, because the Priest on these days
goes in Procession with the Cross before him.
In the old Saxon 'tis nam'd Gang-dagas, i.e. Dayes of Walking or Per
ambulation. In the North of England Gang-week, from the ganging or
going in Procession (for Gang there, as well as in the Saxon, signifies to
go) from an Antient and Commendable Custome (tho discontinued in the
time of the late Unnatural Rebellion) to make Perambulations and Proces
sions with the Young Children in every Parish and Township with us to
view and understand the Ancient Limits and Boundaries of every Parish.5
1 Bath Journal for 1745, Bath, vol. ii. p. 17, April 22, 1745.
2 Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 50.
3 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. 190. Sir
Thomas Browne (Pseudodoxia Epidemica, sec. ed. Book V. ch. xxi. § 16, 1650, London.
Dod and Ekins, p. 228) holds that it is no more than " a Tropicall expression ".
4 Mr. Cuthbert Atchley has nearly exhausted the literature of the Rogation processions
after the Reformation in a paper entitled " Some Notes on Harvest Thanksgivings and
certain other votive offices " in Transactions of the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society ,
1905, vol. v. p. 59.
5 Festa Anglo-Romana, London, Jacob, 1678, p. 60.
ROGATIONTIDE. 229
. Anthony Wood speaks by accident of the Rogation procession
in 1664.
The next day being Munday it was soe excessive hot that people that
went a procession in the country about us fainted with heat and the poultry
in Abington market died with heat.1
And yet it was only May 16, when great heat is not to be
looked for. In 1667 Mr. Pepys notes on another May 1 6 :
This being Holy Thursday, when the boys go on procession round the
parish.
In 1671 Anthony Wood notes the processioning again :
June i, Holy thursday, St. Peter's <in the East> parishioners came a
processioning and took in half Alban hall. Mr. <Robert> Whitehall (the
sub-warden) and I therefore went to forbid them, telling them that the
cross should be made by the principall's dore.2
In June 1682 Anthony Wood notes the holding of the proces
sion in the parish of St. John Baptist on Whitsun Monday, June 5,
not on Ascension day. The Rogations at Milan are held on the
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after Ascension Day and before
Pentecost, but this is not 'like what was done at Merton. They
made the crosses on the houses, as the St. Peter's people had done
in i67i.3
I have been told by a young man who has seen these processions
at Oxford in this century that the crosses are made with white chalk
on the houses by the parson or curate.
An account of these processions in the diocese of St. Asaph in
1686 is given in the second appendix to this chapter.
The Rogation Processions were also observed in the North.
It was a general Custom formerly, and is still observed in some Country
Parishes, to go round the Bounds and Limits of the Parish, on one of the
three Days before Holy Thursday, or the Feasts of our Lord's Ascension ;
when the Minister, accompany 'd with his Church- Wardens ax\& Parishioners,
were wont to deprecate the Vengeance of God, beg a Blessing on the Fruits
of the Earth, and preserve the Rights and Properties of their Parish.*
Bourne has certainly not overstated the frequency of the practice.
What is most present to the minds of us in the twentieth century
1 The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical
Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 13.
*ibid. p. 223.
3 ibid. vol. iii. p. 20.
4 Henry Bourne, Antiquitates Vulgares, Newcastle, J. White, 1725, p. 203.
230 ROGATIONTIDE.
is the preservation of the ancient bounds and rights of the parish,
the last of Bourne's purposes. There were certain places or boundary
marks, at which they read a Gospel ; but what gospel, whether the
gospel of the day or some other, is not so clearly indicated. The
making a station is spoken of by the following writer of the later
seventeenth century.
30. And now I have run myself into Divinity, I cannot but note an odd
custom at Stanlake, where the Parson in the Procession about holy Thursday,
reads a Gospel at a Barrels head in the Cellar of the Chequer Inn, where
some say there was formerly a Hermitage ; others that there was anciently
a Cross, at which they read a Gospel in former times, over which now the
house, and particularly the cellar being built, they are forced to perform
it in the manner as above.1
In 1750 this custom is enquired after in Visitation Articles :
Do he and his Parishioners observe the annual Perambulation in
Rogation Week ? 2
At Wolverhampton where there was a collegiate church the
following ceremonies are recorded by a clergyman.
Among the local customs which have prevailed here may be noticed
that which was popularly called Processioning. Many of the older inhabi
tants can well remember when the Sacrist, resident prebendaries, and
members of the choir, assembled at morning-prayers on Monday and Tues
day in Rogation week, with the charity-children, bearing long poles cloathed
with all kinds of flowers then in season, and which were afterwards carried
through the streets of the town with much solemnity, the clergy, singing men,
and boys, dressed in their sacred vestments, closing the procession, and
chanting, in a grave and appropriate melody, the Canticle, Benedicite, omnia
opera, &c.
* * *
The boundaries of the township and parish of Wolverhampton, which
latter is very extensive, are in many points marked out by what are called
Gospel trees, from the custom of having the Gospel read under or near them,
by the clergyman attending the parochial perambulations. Those near the
town were visited for the same purpose by the Processioners before-men
tioned, and are still preserved with the strictest care and attention.3
It will be noticed that at Wolverhampton they sang a canticle
in the procession, Benedicite omnia opera, which is an alternative in
1 [Robert Plot,] The Natural History of Oxfordshire, Oxford, 1677, ch. viii. § 30, p.
203.
2 Articles of Visitation . . . Martin [Benson] Bishop of Glocester, Glocester, Raikes,
1750, p. 3-
8 Stebbing Shaw, The history and antiquities of Staffordshire, London, Nichols,
1801, vol. ii. p. 165.
ROGATIONTIDE. 231
the Prayer Book for Te Deum. They do not seem, therefore, to have
followed the Elizabethan directions that they should sing the two
psalms that begin Benedic anima mea> that is, the iO3rd and I«p4th,
with the litany and suffrages, that is the latter part of the litany be
ginning with the Lord's Prayer.1
Late in the eighteenth century an inhabitant of Ripon sets down
amongst other local customs :
Some time in the spring, I think the day before Holy Thursday, all
the clergy, attended by the singing men and boys of the choir, perambulate
the town in their canonicals, singing hymns ; and the blue-coat charity-
boys follow, singing, with green boughs in their hands.2
It will be noticed how like the ceremonial at Ripon is to that at
Wolverhampton.
The gospel trees are alluded to by Herrick :
Dearest, bury me
Under that Holy-oak or Gospel-tree
Where, though thou see'st not, thou may'st think upon
Me, when thou yearly go'st procession.3
Writing certainly before 1813, possibly as early as 1795, Brand
says :
In London, these parochial processions are still kept up on Holy
Thursday.4
They were in existence in the City of London in 1 870.
It seems plain from what has been quoted above that these pro
cessions in the eighteenth century had a distinct religious character ;
shown by the'canticles, the hymns, the psalms, the reading of a gospel
by the clergyman ; and thus while the definition of the parish bound
aries was not forgotten, a blessing on the fruits of the earth was
asked, and the vengeance of God deprecated, as Bourne has said.
It may be doubted if nowadays any thought of deprecating the
vengeance of God would be allowed by the school of Dr. Gore.
More than once, in proposals for revision of the Prayer Book,
coming from this quarter, the last verses of Venite which speak of
the wrath of God have been struck out : and yet the whole of this
1 Henry Gee and W. J. Hardy, Documents illustrative of English Church History,
Macmillan, 1896, Document LXXXI, p. 472.
2 Gentleman's Magazine, 1790, vol. Ix. p. 719, Aug. 18, Signed : Riponiensis.
3 Robert Herrick, Hesperides, 55, in Works, ed. A. W. Pollard, London, Lawrence
and Bullen, 1898, vol. i. p. 22.
4 John Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities, ed. Henry Ellis, London, 1813,
vol. i. p. 169, note.
232 KEEPING OF SUNDAY.
Invitatory Psalm has been sung for centuries before Mattins with
out offence.
The same idea of asking a blessing on the products of the sea
as well as on the fruits of the earth was to be found in the Isle of
Man, not necessarily expressed at the Rogations.
Tho' Herrings are taken all round this Island, yet the main Body of
the Fisher-Boats goes out from Port Iron, where the Fishermen are attended
by a Clergyman, who joins with them in a solemn Form of Prayer, on the
Sea-side, to Almighty God, that he will be pleased to favour their Under
taking, and bless their Nets with Plenty.1
Mr. Pepys observes on May 23, 1661 that Ascension Day was
kept as a holiday throughout the town ; but this practice must
very soon have been given up, for the Swedish chaplain, in 1683,
though pleased with many things in the Church, of England, yet is
astonished at the neglect of Ascension Day with us.2
KEEPING OF SUNDAY.
The keeping of Sunday during our period varied greatly.
There seem to have been two schools ; one, of much severity, keep
ing Sunday like a Jewish Sabbath, no relaxation or recreation being
permitted ; and the other, treating the day almost as if it were any
other day ; amusements, such as card playing, being allowed by some,
but servile work being forbidden. Between these two extremes
many stages may be found.
It is much to be wished that one of the Puritan school had left
behind him a book on Sabbatical Casuistry, to tell us what may
be or may not be done on " the Sabbath " in the opinion of his sect.
It is not to be supposed that the laws of Massachusetts were ever
enforced in their rigour in England during our period ; but Sir
Matthew Hale wrote out in 1662 a set of Directions for keeping the
Lords Day which were to be observed in his family and which are
sufficiently severe. Here he gives his opinion upon what may be
allowed on Sunday ; first, works of absolute necessity, amongst
which he reckons stopping the breach of a sea wall, milking cows,
setting a broken bone, dressing meat. But he adds :
If a rick of Hay be on fire, I may endeavour to quench it on the Lord's
Day : but if my Corn be cut, and lying abroad upon the ground on the
1 George Waldron, A Description of the Isle of Man, contained in Compleat Works,
no place or name, 1731, second pagination, p. 159.
z Miscellanea, comprising the Works and Letters of Dennis Granville, Surtees
Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 171.
KEEPING OF SUNDAY. 233
Saturday, though the weather be rainy, or inclining to wet, I may not
make it into Cocks, or fetch it home upon the Lord's Day.1
It is hard to see the underlying difference. And he forbids
recreation :
I would not have you meddle with any Recreations, Pastimes, or or
dinary work of your Calling, from Saturday -night at eight of the Clock,
till Monday-morning?
So a little further on :
In all your speeches or actions of this day, let there be no Lightness
nor Vanity ; use no Running, or Leaping, or Playing, or Wrestling ; use
no Jesting, nor telling of Tales or foolish Stories, no talk about worldly
business ; but let your actions and speech be such as the day is, serious
and sacred.3
Here is very marked the strict control derived from the ideas of
the Puritan Sabbath. Sunday is to be a day of gloom. You are
to behave all Sunday as you behave at a funeral.
But on the other hand, immediately after the Restoration the
Oxford dons seem to have thought it good policy to discourage
Puritanism, and to suppress an over-strict Sabbatarian observance
of the Sunday ; which efforts are thus described :
And, that they might go just antipodes to the intervall time, not to
hinder, <but> to indulg or connive <at> walking or sports or drinking on
the Lord's day ; — to connive or pass, not to punish, swearing or drunken
ness or wenching.4
* * *
the strictness of the Lord's day was mitigated, that is to say that people
might loyter about the streets in sermon time, sit upon benches and bulks
and talke idely, walk or ride into the feilds, drink in taverns and alehouses,
etc., — all of which were accounted damnable in the intervall.5
The interval means the usurpation.
In the same direction we have Cosin treating of the Ten Com
mandments and the breaking of the Fourth :
Offenders against the Fourth Commandment.
* * *
2. They that set themselves to needless, worldly and servile affairs upon
the Sunday.
#• * *
x[Sir Matthew Hale,] Contemplations Moral and Divine^ London, Shrewsbury,
1676, in Directions for keeping the Lords Day, p. 85.
9 ibid. p. 86. « ibid. p. 89.
4 The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, ed. by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical
Society, 1891, vol. i. p. 356.
dibid. p. 359.
234 KEEPING OF SUNDA Y.
6. They that, under a pretence of serving God more strictly than others,
(especially for hearing and meditating of Sermons,) do, by their Fasts and
certain Judaizing observations, condemn the joyful Festivity of this High
and Holy day, which the Church allows, first for the spiritual Exercises of
the Soul ; and then for the lawful and convenient recreation of the Body
in due time.1
This latter paragraph is an attack upon the Puritan practice.
Dr. Wetenhall, also writing near Puritan times, in his popular
Enter into thy closet allows on Sunday walking in the fields 2 as a
recreation : this was to the Puritan only one of many forms of
Sabbath breaking.
Robert Nelson says we keep the Lord's day by
Setting it apart for the Exercises of Religious Duties, both in Publick and
Private ; abstaining from the Works of our ordinary Calling, or any other
worldly Affairs and Recreations, which may hinder our attendance upon
the Worship of God, and are not reconcilable with solemn Assemblies, and
may defeat those Ends for which the Day was separated from common uses.3
So farther on we are warned
to take care that no Sowerness or Moroseness mingle with our serious
frame of Mind.4
To return to what was actually done. Anthony Wood complains
in 1679 that the Mayor of Oxford, Robert Pauling,
prohibits coffee to be sold on Sunday, which Dr. Nicholas, vice-chan
cellor, prohibited onlie till after evening prayer, viz. till five of the clock ;
but this R. Pauling hath been bred up a Puritan.5
Coffee houses were much resorted to in Oxford at this time, and
it may be supposed that the prohibition of coffee spoken of is the
closing of the coffee houses on Sunday. Here we have again the
contrast between the two schools.
In 1715 the Vice-Chancellor and Hearne paid a visit to the
Schools Tower on a Sunday and inspected documents.6
It may be noticed that good Mr. Evelyn made a journey on a
Sunday in which he accompanied Lord Essex to Cassiobury.
1 John Cosin, A Collection of Private Devotions, London, Royston, 1681.
2 [E. Wetenhall,] Enter into thy closet, London, Martyn, 1672, 4th ed. p. 210.
3 Robert Nelson, A Companion for the Feastivals and Fasts of the Church of Eng
land, London, Churchill, 1705, 3rd ed. p. 14 (under Lord's Day).
4 ibid. p. 20.
5 Life and Times of Anthony Wood, edited by Andrew Clark, Oxford Historical
Society, 1892, vol. ii. p. 463.
6 Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1901, vol. v.
p. 109.
KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. 235
(April 1 8, 1680.) Going early they arrived at the house at ten,
but thought it too late to go to church; so they had prayers
in the chapel.
This most worthy man gives a charming description of the way
in which Mrs. Godolphin spent her Sundays :
How would this Lady rejoyce att the approach of the Lord's day.
She has often told me she felt another soule in her ; and that there was
nothing more afflicted her than those impertinent visitts on Sunday Even
ings, which she avoided with all imaginable industry ; whilst yett seldome
did she pass one without goeing to visitt, pray by, or instruct some poor
religious Creature or other, tho' it were to the remotest part of the Towne ;
and sometymes, if the season were inviteing, walke into the fields or
Gardens to contemplate the workes of God. In a word, she was allwayes
soe solemnly chearfull upon that day, and soe devout, that without lookeing
into the Kalendar, one might have read it in her countenance. Thus was
the Sunday taken up in prayers, hearing, receiveing, meditateing on the
word and workes of God, acts of Charity, and other holy exercises, without
the least formalitye or confusion ; because she had cast all her affairs into
such a method, as rendered it delightfull as well as holy.1
Passing into the eighteenth century we may consider the more
reasonable episcopal pronouncements of the time.
In 1710 Dr. Fleetwood, when Bishop of St. Asaph, spoke well
of the Book of Sports, which is the more remarkable as he has the
reputation of being a Low Churchman and a Whig.
The Book of Sports it self, (which was but a Declaration put out by
James I. and afterwards unhappily reviv'd in the Day of K. Charles, his
Son) as odious, and licentious as it was esteem'd, did yet prescribe such
Rules, as I should be glad were now observ'd, in some places, in Honour
of the Lords-Day.2
He then recounts the restrictions, as obliging presence at Divine
Service, while the sports did not begin till after Evening Prayer.
Dr. Seeker in his second charge as Bishop of Oxford in 1741,
insists upon the joyful character of the Christian Sunday.
And therefore, though one would not by any Means make their Day
of Rest wearisome, nor forbid Cheerfulness, and even innocent Festivity
upon it, much less the Expressions of neighbourly Civility and Good-will,
which are indeed a valuable Part of the gracious Ends of the Institution :
yet employing a reasonable Share of it seriously at Home as well as at
Church, and preserving an especial Reverence of God even throughout
the freer Hours of it.3
1 John Evelyn, The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p. 171.
2 Articles of Enquiry exhibited by . . . William [Fleetwood] Lord Bishop of St.
Asaph, 1710, no printer, p. 39.
3 Thomas Seeker, Eight Charges, London, Rivington, 1771, p. 75.
236 KEEPING OF SUNDA Y.
In an Instruction for Sunday morning, Dr. Thomas Wilson,
the saint-like Bishop of Sodor and Man, speaks thus :
It is your duty, therefore, on this good day^ to lay aside, as much as
possible, all worldly business, all worldly thoughts, all worldly pleasures,
that you may honour your Creator to the best of your power : — by owning
your dependance upon Him ; by hearing His Word and His commands ;
by asking His blessings, and giving Him thanks for His favours.1
The same bishop in his Instruction to Indians has this question
and answer :
Ind. ' How is the Lord's day profaned ? '
Miss. By . . . idleness and trifling conversation ; unnecessary business
and journeys ; and by vain sports and gaming^ unbecoming the seriousness
of the day and of Christianity.2
This bishop is more inclined to take up a severe attitude to
wards the keeping of Sunday than some of his brethren.
Following is an interesting reason for allowing ourselves to call
Sunday the Christian Sabbath : because Our Lord rested from
the work of our salvation on that day.
And the resurrection of Christ^ wherein he rested from all the labours
of his love towards mankind, and finished the great work which his Father
had given him to do, being the great evidence of our spiritual and eternal
redemption by him ; it was very reasonable that \h& Jewish sabbath should
withdraw, and give place to the day, when old things were done away,
and all things thus became new, in virtue of his resurrection.3
The Rev. Moses Browne, who is said to have been the chief
poetical contributor to the Gentleman s Magazine of his time, was
not prepared to enforce a Judaizing law for Sunday, so as to for
bid walking in the fields on that day. These are his verses :
away ! ye gloom'd
O'er-rigid race ! Stiff pharisees in creed I
Who gospel-saints by sabbatary forms
Would bind ; that vassalage of legal rest.^
Even now, when the University in England has become an
agnostic institution, it may be doubted if a convocation would be
held at Oxford on a Sunday. Yet in 1759 a letter from the King
1 Thomas Wilson, Plain and Short Directions and Prayers, in Works, Anglo-
Catholic Library, Oxford, Parker, vol. iv. p. 109.
2 Thomas Wilson, The Knowledge and Practice of Christianity, Part II. Dialogue
xiii. in Works, as above, vol. iv. p. 239.
3 Richard Fiddes, Theologia Practical or, the second part of a body of divinity,
London, Bernard Lintot, 1720. Introduction, p. viii.
4 Moses Browne, Sunday Thoughts, London, 1750, Part ii. p. 49.
KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. 237
of Prussia was " On Sunday last read to the doctors and masters
in full convocation".1 In the eighteenth century the University
of Oxford was part of the Church of England, and in its practice
may be held to represent the teaching of that Church. For it
should be remembered that throughout our period the two Uni
versities of Oxford and Cambridge were part and parcel of the
Church of England Later on, these ancient bodies underwent, at
the hands of the nineteenth century parliaments, changes far greater
than they had ever before experienced in the sixteenth century.
A popular novel that went through at least six editions attri
butes the following opinions to a devout nobleman :
My Lord is of opinion that Sunday was intended as a day of rejoicing,
not of mortification.
and a little farther on :
It is worth observing that the book of sports was put forth by the
pious, the religious, the sober Charles the First ; and the law for the more
strict observation of Sunday passed in the reign of the libertine Charles
the Second.2
To turn now to the practice of people that thought themselves
fashionable. On Sunday the Hon. Mrs. Osborn writing from Bath
in 1721, says she goes " to Church and to return all my Visits".3
So Miss Burney (Madame D'Arblay) tells us that in 1778 Mrs.
Montagu invited all to a house warming on Easter Day.4
Further, in June 1780 the same diarist records that being at
Bath with Mrs. Thrale one Sunday, the Bishop of Peterborough,
who must then have been Dr. Hinchcliffe, " proposed a frolic " after
dinner, which was, to go and drink tea at Spring Gardens. Mrs.
Thrale found she had invited a number of people to her house for
the afternoon. So that here we have a Bishop enjoying a " frolic "
on a Sunday and Mrs. Thrale, without any suspicion of causing
scandal, entertaining a large party of friends on the same day.5
A Sunday shortly after, Miss Burney attends a large party at
Mrs. Byron's.6
These large parties on Sundays may be contrasted with the
1 Annual Register, 1759, August, seventh edition, London, 1783, p. 105.
2 The History of Lady Julia Mandeville, a new edition, London, Dodsley [1763],
vol. i. pp. 180, 181.
3 Mrs. Sarah Osborn, Political and Social Letters of a Lady of the eighteenth
century, 1721-1771, Griffith Farran, about 1890, p. 21.
4 Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay, London, Colburn, 1842, vol. i. p. 126.
5 ibid. pp. 369-371. 6 ibid. p. 390.
238 KEEPING OF SUN DA Y.
scruples of the mid-nineteenth century. Lady Palmerston, during
the zenith of her husband's power, had assemblies on the Saturday
evenings, and the papers were careful to record that the company
separated shortly before midnight.
But it is clear that the non-observance of Sunday went much
farther than giving tea parties on that day. Dr. Home, the Bishop
of Norwich, sarcastically observes that
The idea of a Sunday, unenlivened by a little innocent play, is a very
dull and dreary one.1
In a number of the Rambler (No. 10.) ascribed to Mrs. Chapone
we read :
Lady Racket sends compliments to the Rambler, and lets him know,
she shall have cards at her house every Sunday.
In No. 100. attributed to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the translator
of Epictetus, she implores the Rambler to enlarge on the very ex
tensive benefit of playing at cards on . Sunday.
No. 30. also attributed to another pen than Johnson's, speaks in
the name of Sunday ; but would appear to aim at a Via media, not
Puritan, nor continental.
From Dublin it was reported that a lady of considerable rank
gave card parties and drums on Sunday evenings. But a number
of gentlemen stopped a Sedan chair going to the party, and told the
occupant she was a very wicked woman to play cards on the Sunday.2
It may be asked did not the party of gentlemen commit an offence,
according to their own rules, in stopping a Sedan chair on a Sunday ?
It needs a mind of much acuteness and experience in casuistry to
find reason why one thing like card playing should be wrong, yet
another kind of amusement, as music, be lawful.
Thus the other stricter side of Sunday observance makes itself
felt. William Law's asceticism appears in his treatment of Sunday
amusements. He says :
Not only you, but the Generality of Readers, would think it very
improper, and contrary to Piety, to read Plays on the Sundays?
But it is to be remembered that William Law held all kinds of
stage performances to be forbidden to Christians ; so that the reading
of a play would very likely be as sinful as going to the theatre.
1 Olla Podrida, No. 29, sec. ed. London, Dilly, 1788, p. 289.
2 Annual Register, 1760, March i, seventh ed. Dodsley, 1789, Chronicle, p. 87.
3 William Law, A practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, ch. x. ed. J. J.
Trebeck, London, Spottiswoode, 1902, p. 266.
KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. 239
The behaviour of the half pious people on Sunday may be told
us by William Law :
If you visit Flavta on the Sunday, you will always meet good company,
you will know what is doing in the world, you will hear the last lampoon, be
told who wrote it, and who is meant by every name that is in it. ...
Flavia thinks they are Atheists that play at cards on the Sunday, but she
will tell you the nicety of all the games, what cards she held, how she play d
them, and the history of all that happened at play as soon as she comes
from Church. . . . But still she has so great a regard for the holiness of the
Sunday, that she has turned a poor old widow out of her house, as a pro-
phane wretch, for having been found once mending her cloaths on the Sunday
night.1
Parson Adams expresses great horror at gaming for as much as
a whole guinea, which might perhaps be allowed in holiday times ;
but worse appears :
the holy Sabbath is, it seems, prostituted to these wicked revellings ; and
card-playing goes on as publicly then as on any other day.2
In the celebrated Brown's Estimate, the author, dealing with the
observance of Sunday, says
To suppose a Man of Fashion swayed in his Conduct by a Regard to
Futurity is an Affront to the Delicacy and Refinement of his Taste. Hence
the Day set apart by the Laws of his Country for religious Service he
derides and affronts as a vulgar and obsolete Institution.3
How far we may ask does this tirade represent the real state of
affairs ? For almost in the next page he asks
Why in an Age of Irreligion, so capital a Book as the Writings of Lord
Bolingbroke, met with so cold a Reception in the World ?
It will be suggested that the answer may be that the age was not
so irreligious as Dr. Brown more than insinuated.
A journalist satirically remarks that
The Red-letter days pointed out in our common Almanacks may perhaps
be observed by some formal ladies, who regulate their going to church by
them ; but people of quality percieve no difference between the Moveable and
Immoveable Feasts and Fasts, and know no use of Sunday but as it serves
to call them to the card-table.4
He has already said that
1 William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, ch. vii. sixth edition,
London, Innysand Richardson, 1753, p. 97.
2 Henry Fielding, The True Patriot, Tuesday, January 28, 1746, in Works, ed. Murphy
and Browne, London, Bickers, 1871, vol. viii. p. 115.
8 John Brown, A n estimate of the manners and principles of the times, London,
1757, sec. ed. vol. i. sect. vi. p. 54.
4 Connoisseur, No. 99, Dec. 18, 1755, p. 596,
240 KEEPING OF SUN DA Y.
Going to church may indeed be reckoned among our Sunday amuse
ments.1
Dr. Robert Bolton, Dean of Carlisle, was born in 1697 and
died in 1763, and he may be looked upon as a strict upholder of
Puritan principles in the keeping of the Sunday. He does not
seem to allow of a walk on the Sunday.2 He forbids card playing
on a Sunday,3 but this restriction is not unusual.
Already in Hannah More's time it was positively held unlawful
to listen to music on a Sunday. A note from her dated Farn-
borough Place, 1777, says:
On Sunday evening, however, I was a little alarmed ; they were pre
paring for music (sacred music was the ostensible thing) but before I had time
to feel uneasy, Garrick turned round, and said, ' Nine, you are a Sunday
woman; retire to your room — I will recal you when the music is over.'4
" Nine" was a nickname given Hannah More by Garrick. The
very idea of music on a Sunday was enough to drive her to her
room.
Queen Charlotte in 1761 held a Court on Sundays after service:
On Sunday we went to Court again, as every Thursday and Sunday a
large reception of both ladies and gentlemen is held by the Queen.5
And King George the Third was in the habit of holding a re
ception at Windsor on Sunday while a band played. In a letter
from Sir James Stonhouse, baronet, physician, and priest, to Miss
Sarah More, the sister of Hannah More, dated Oct. 17, 1791, he
speaks thus :
The music on the terrace on Sundays is pregnant with evil from Wind
sor to London ; it infects all the neighbourhood ten miles round Windsor,
and oh ! what an irreligious example to the youths of Eton ! 6
This brings us to the often repeated story of an Archbishop of
Canterbury being reprimanded by King George the Third for giving
entertainments on Sunday at Lambeth. This at least is the usual
1 Connoisseur, No. 26, July 25, 1754, p. 154.
2 Robert Bolton, A Letter to an Officer . . . on travelling on Sundays, London,
Rivington, 1757, p. 27.
* idem, A Letter . . . on Card Playing on the Lord's Day, London, Leake, 1748.
4 Memoirs of . . . Mrs. Hannah More, edited by William Roberts, Seeley, 1834,
vol. i. p. 113.
5 Count Frederick Kielmansegge, Diary of a Journey to England in the years 1761-
62, Longmans, 1902, p. 27.
6 Memoirs . . . of Mrs. Hannah More, ed. by William Roberts, sec. ed. Seeley,
1834, vol. ii. p. 283.
KEEPING OF SUN DA Y. 241
interpretation of the letter. But there are difficulties in the way of
accepting this interpretation. In the first place, in the letter the
text of which is relied upon for this statement, there is no mention
of Sunday at all. Secondly, the objections of the King apply rather
to the introductions of " routs," that is, soirees, or evening assemblies,
into the seclusion of an archiepiscopal house, which the King says
has been devoted for centuries to divine studies, religious retirement,
and the extensive exercise of charity and benevolence. Such recep
tions, though in the nineteenth century these were thought harmless
enough in a bishop's house, yet to the feeling of the King, were very
objectionable.
It does not appear from any part of the letter that it was
the day that offended the King's sense of the fitness of things, but
the place in which the entertainments were held. We know also
the King's own contrary Sunday practice at Windsor, Weymouth,
and Kensington, from which the remonstrances of Dr. Porteous and
Dr. Barrington, the Bishops of London and Durham, could not move
him. Here is the evidence of a writer who appears to have some
private sources of information :
A good deal has been said in recent discussions on the Sunday amuse
ment controversy, of King George's Sunday bands at Kensington and on
the Weymouth esplanade ; and these have generally been cited only as
instances of the laxer usage of that time, under so religious a sovereign.
But the truth is that the King upheld these practices with all his decision of
character, and against a good deal of opposition. It is said that he was
countenanced in them by Bishop Douglas, the only clergyman who after the
death of Hurd appears to have had much influence with him. The story
ran that he consulted Douglas as to the propriety of Sunday amusements, at
the time when Bishops Porteous and Barrington were endeavouring to re
strain them. Douglas told him not to mind them, * for the first was a
Methodist, and the last only followed the first.' Porteous, who objected to
the ' Sunday esplanade ' at Weymouth, is said to have made the King so
angry that he would not speak to him for some days.1
The following text of the royal letter comes neither from the
King nor the Archbishop ; but, thanks to the kindness of the Rev.
Claude Jenkins, Librarian at Lambeth Palace, it is taken from a
printed quarto sheet of four pages belonging to Miss D. F. Ellison,
whereon is given a letter purporting to be written by Dr. John Jebb,
who was Bishop of Limerick from 1822 to 1833. The letter is
dated Feb. 1808, and deals with the impropriety of clergymen
1 George III. and Charles James Fox, in the Quarterly Review, 1859, vol. cv. p. 479
note.
16
242 KEEPING OF SUNDA Y.
being present at fashionable amusements. On p. 4, after Dr. Jebb's
letter, is printed this letter from King George the Third. Earlier
than this printed sheet I have been unable to trace the King's
letter. I cannot help expressing some of the hesitation which I
should feel if called upon to accept the text as authentic.
My good Lord Primate,
I could not delay giving you the notification of the grief and
concern with which my breast was affected, at receiving authentic informa
tion that routs had made their way into your palace. At the same time I
must signify to you my sentiments on this subject, which hold these levities
and vain dissipations as utterly inexpedient, if not unlawful, to pass in a
residence, for many centuries devoted to divine studies, religious retire
ment, and the extensive exercise of charity and benevolence ; I add, in a
place where so many of your predecessors have led their lives in such
sanctity as has thrown lustre on the pure religion they professed and
adorned. From the dissatisfaction with which you must perceive I behold
these improprieties, not to speak in harsher terms, and in still more pious
principles, I trust you will suppress them immediately : so that I may not
have occasion to show any further marks of my displeasure, or to interpose
in a different manner.
May God take your Grace into His Almighty protection ! I remain,
my Lord Primate, Your gracious friend,
G. R.1
In like manner King Lewis the Sixteenth rebuked the Arch
bishop of Narbonne for offences far greater than any suggested in
the foregoing letter. The censure had a precedent a thousand
years old. Charles the Great used to deal very freely with his
bishops and abbots.
Kings and members of Royal Families are more often the
subjects of myth than common folk. It is said, for example, that
Quicunque Vult being in due course recited before King George
the Third, he shut the book with such emphasis and such gesture
of disapproval that the chaplains never again dared to recite the
symbol in his presence. The following seems a more trustworthy
account, being furnished by Dr. Heberden, physician to the King
and Queen.
The clergyman there, on a day when the Athanasian Creed was to be
read, began with Whosoever will be saved, &c. ; the King, who usually
1 The letter is also printed in some of the lives of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon,
who claims to have moved the King to write the letter, as a protest against Sunday
amusements at Lambeth. (Life and Times, London, Painter, 1844, vol. ii. p. 283.
Also Sarah Tytler, The Countess of Huntingdon and her circle, London, Sir Isaac
Pitman, 1907, p. 125.)
KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. 243
responded with a loud voice, was silent ; the minister repeated, in a higher
tone, his Whosoever ; the King continued silent ; and at length the
Apostle's f Creed was repeated by the minister, and the King followed
him throughout with a distinct and audible voice.1
The reasonable interpretation is that the King could not find
the place. We often see this in congregations at the present time.
It must be owned that the rules set down for the keeping of
Sunday by many authors seem arbitrary, and not easy to explain
consistently upon any good grounds. If we regard the Fourth
Commandment as binding upon Christians as it was upon Jews,
then the position held by Sir Matthew Hale is intelligible, except
that Sunday is not Saturday. If with Thorndike we conclude that
Sunday is not of divine ordination, but is solely a matter of eccle
siastical observance,2 it will be a troublesome matter to draw a line
dividing lawful from unlawful relaxations and amusements.
Dr. Johnson, as ever, was not consistent in his opinions on the
way in which Sunday should be kept. A friend, Mrs. Thrale tells us,
looking out on Streatham Common from our windows one day, lamented
the enormous wickedness of the times, because some bird-catchers were
busy there one fine Sunday morning. " While half the Christian world is
permitted (said he) to dance and sing, and celebrate Sunday as a day of
festivity, how comes your puritanical spirit so offended with frivolous and
empty deviations from exactness. Whoever loads life with unnecessary
scruples, Sir (continued he), provokes the attention of others on his
conduct, and incurs the censure of singularity without reaping the reward
of superior virtue." 3
It seems as if this remark had been provoked by the speech of
the visitor who cried out on the abominable crime of catching birds
on a Sunday ; for nearly all that we have of Johnson's conversation
when he was not excited by his love of contradiction is in favour
of keeping a strict Sunday. Thus about bird catching Boswell
reports :
Dr. Johnson enforced the strict observance of Sunday. " It should
be different (he observed) from another day. People may walk, but not
throw stones at birds. There may be relaxation, but there should be no
levity." 4
1 Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, London, Cadell
& Davies, 1817, p. 243.
2 Herbert Thorndike, Of the Laws of the Church, Book III. ch. xxi. § 19, in Theo
logical Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1853, Vol. IV. part ii. p. 497.
3 Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by Hesther Lynch Piozzi, second
ed. London, Cadell, 1786, p. 228.
4 J. Boswell, Journal of a tour to the Hebrides, Aug. 20, 1773.
16*
244 KEEPING OF SUNDA Y.
Much the same is the purport of another dictum.
He said he would not have Sunday kept with rigid severity and gloom,
but with a gravity and simplicity of behaviour.1
Later on he said to Boswell :
I do not like to read anything on a Sunday, but what is theological ;
not that I would scrupulously refuse to look at anything which a friend
should shew me in a newspaper ; but in general, I would read only what
is theological.2
and on another day :
Sunday (said he) was a heavy day to me when I was a boy. My
mother confined me on that day, and made me read ' The Whole Duty
of Man.'3
No one makes any claim for Good Friday that the observance
of the day is of divine obligation ; yet Boswell notes :
I observed that he would not even look at a proof-sheet of his Life of
Waller on Good Friday. . . .
He, however, observed, that formerly there might have been a dis
pensation obtained for working on Sunday in the time of harvest. Indeed in
ritual observances, were all the ministers of religion what they should be,
and what many of them are, such a power might be wisely and safely
lodged with the Church.4
If the observance of Sunday be a part of the divine law, the
Church cannot dispense with the observance, as Johnson here says
it might; if so, it follows that Sunday is only an ecclesiastical
holiday, according to Johnson. Much in the same way Ralph
Thoresby, who was prosecuted for nonconformity in 1683, yet in
1678 enters in his Diary of February :
23. Die Dom. Constrained utterly against my mind to travel from
Royston to Stamford, though the Lord's day ; but either do so, or be left
upon the road about a hundred miles from home and not knowing a foot
of the way.5
This is some evidence that a non-conforming Puritan did not
consider the obligation on Sunday to abstain from travelling to be
of divine obligation : for if it were, he should have suffered any
inconvenience rather than break a divine command.
Christmas is only an ecclesiastical festival, and travelling may
not be thought forbidden on the day. Yet Fielding introduces
1 BoswelVs Life of Johnson, September, 1769, vol. ii. p. 72.
2 James Boswell, Journal of a tour to the Hebrides, October 17, 1773.
3 BoswelPs Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, vol. i. p. 67.
4 ibid. April 17, 1778.
5 The diary of Ralph Thoresby, ed. Joseph Hunter, London, 1830, vol. i. p. 13.
KEEPING OF SUNDA Y. 245
Parson Adams describing a mere boy who, after his kind, pretends
to every vice conceivable :
[Mr. Wilson] asked our spark when he left London ? To which he
answered, the Wednesday before. 'How, Sir,' said I, 'travel on Christ
mas-day?' 'Was it so,' says he, 'fags! that's more than I knew; but
why not travel on Christmas-day as well as any other ? ' ' Why not ? '
said I, lifting my voice ; for I had lost all patience. ' Was you not brought
up in the Christian religion ? Did you never learn your catechism ? ' l
•Fags is most likely the same as Ifegs, which N.E.D. says is
used by i8th century dramatists as a trivial oath, by my faith.
Yet some thirty years later a beneficed clergyman thinks he
causes no scandal by openly leaving his parish for London as soon
as the duty of the Sunday is over. The Rev. Stotherd Abdy,
Rector of Cookersale, who died in 1773, has left behind him a
journal of a visit from Essex into Berkshire. It begins :
On Sunday Sept. gth 1770, as soon as the Evening Service was over,
Mrs Abdy and myself set off Post for Saville Row, and came to Sir Anthony's
Door there, soon after seven.2
The next Sunday they had a drive ; we " read the Newspapers,
chatted over our Letters, and made Bouts rimes verses, till we were
called to supper ". Bouts rimes were a degenerate kind of wit, only
the two final rhymes being given, and the rest of the verse had to
be supplied by the society poet. After supper, as the ladies resolved
to be dumb, the evening was spent somewhat hilariously ; what was
called in 1870 a bear fight followed (a kind of entertainment during
which it could be looked for that the two front teeth might be
knocked out), glasses of water thrown over gentlemen's legs, ladies'
caps and hats pulled off, and the like.3
Let us compare this travelling on Sunday and merry making
with the ideas of Miss Austen, who thinks a young woman well
advised to reject a suitor because
She saw that there had been bad habits ; that Sunday travelling had
been a common thing.4
It would seem that we must conclude that in the latter half of
the eighteenth century in some clerical circles travelling on Sundays
was thought quite allowable ; in others, scandalous.
1 The true Patriot, No. 10, Tuesday, January 28, 1746, in Fielding's Works, ed.
Murphy and Browne, Bickers, 1871, vol. viii. p. 117.
2 Lady Alice Archer Houblon, The Houblon Family, London, Constables, 1907,
vol. ii. p. 118, ch. v.
sibid., p. 127.
4 Jane Austen, Persuasion, ch. xvii. It is said to have been written between 1811
and 1816.
246 KEEPING OF SUNDA Y.
Boswell put a case of conscience to Johnson concerning con
sultations on Sunday. Much the same conclusion is arrived at as
before that the obligation to keep Sunday may be dispensed.
I asked Johnson whether I might go to a consultation with another
lawyer upon Sunday, as that appeared to me to be doing work as much in my
way, as if an artisan should work on the day appropriated for religious rest.
JOHNSON. c Why, Sir, when you are of consequence enough to oppose
the practice of consulting upon Sunday, you should do it : but you may go
now. It is not criminal, though it is not what one should do, who is
anxious for the preservation and increase of piety, to which a peculiar ob
servance of Sunday is a great help. The distinction is clear between what
is of moral and what is of ritual obligation.' l
Johnson on his deathbed made three requests to Sir Joshua
Reynolds :
The second demand was that Sir Joshua should not paint on Sundays.
To this a small degree of hesitation appeared, but however no positive objec
tion was made.2
This request, if regarded by Johnson as of moral obligation,
does not seem consistent with his opinion offered to Boswell, for
the moral law is immutable and cannot be dispensed with ; but the
ecclesiastical law can be dispensed by the same authority that
enacted it. No school in this matter seems to have been quite
consistent during our period.
One sign of the coming reaction against the Evangelical Sab
batarianism is given in a pamphlet on Church Reform published in
1834. The writer allows sober and temperate amusements after
service on Sunday.3
From a review of what is known of the observance of Sunday
in our period it would seem just to infer that throughout all the
early part of it, until towards the end of the eighteenth century,
Church people kept the Sunday in two ways ; one set allowing re
laxation and amusements after attendance at church ; the other for
bidding all amusements, limiting reading to the Bible, or theolog
ical books, and making the day gloomy. Towards 1 800 this latter
party got a complete upper hand, and their domination lasted to
the end of our period and beyond.
1 BoswelVs Life of Johnson, May 12, 1775.
2 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, London, J.
Walker, 1785, p. 181.
8 Montagu Robert Melville, Reform not subversion I a Proposed Book of Common
Prayer, London, Roake and Varty, 1834, p. 88.
APPENDICES TO CHAPTER VII.
APPENDIX I.
/
DESCRIPTION OF THE KING'S MAUNDY, WASHING OF THE FEET,
DISTRIBUTION OF CLOTHES, ALMS, AND FISH.
[From British Museum, Harl. MS. 3795.]
f. 28.] The service to be don on Maundy thursday by the Lord
Bishop Almoner.
1. Scaffolds and boxes to be made round the roome and an high
scaffold for the gentlemen of the Chappell with a moveable organ.
2. The Lords who dine with the Lord Almoner bring him into his
chaire the subalmoner attending on him, both girt about with linen, and a
linen Towell in the fashion of a Doctors Tippet ; The Lord Almoner taking
his chaire with a deske before him, kneeles downe ; The gentlemen of the
chappell begin prayers ; The exhortation, confession, with a proper psalme,
for the worke of the day ; Then part of the 1 3th chapter of St. John, from
ist verse to the i8th. When the chapter is read, the Lord Almoner marches
downe to the first poore man, takes a sprigg of Hysop, and Sprinckles the
water on his foot, wipes it with his Towell, and kisses it, and does all this
kneeling ; soe to every poore man in his order, then returnes to his seate,
after which an Anthem is sung.
3. After the Anthem the 2nd offering is brought in, vizt. the stockings
and shoes by the Guard in theire rich coates ; the sub-almoner taking it
from the guard, and delivers it to the Lord Almoner, and he bestowes it to
every poore man, after this, another Anthem.
4. That service don, the Wardrobe brings in theire clothes, linen and
woollen ; after that the Anthem.
5. That service don, the clerkes of the Treasury bring in their
purses : first, white purses, in every purse 3 1 single pence ; then red purses
in every one of them 205. The sub-almoner takes all gives it to the Lord
Almoner : soe after every service the Lord Almoner returnes to his seate,
then an Anthem.
f. 29.] 6. After this then the Guard brings in a jowle of Linge, a jowle
of Salmon, and some Herings, to every poore body, the sub-almoner taking
247
248 APPENDIX I. TO CHAPTER VII.
it and gives it to the Lord Almoner, and he to the poore ; then is read
the 25th chapter of St Matthew begining i4th verse ; and soe reade to
the end of the chapter : After that the blessing is pronounced.
Then the Lord Almoner calls for Wine and drinkes to all the poore
the Kings health, and bids them * againe be thankeful to God and
the King,
f zgb.] Maundy Service.
* scored through.
APPENDIX II.
ROGATION PROCESSIONS AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY.
[Bodleian MS. Tanner 30. f. 23.]
Directions for my Brethren of the Clergy that shall officiate in the
Perambulations.
*By William [Lloyd] Lord Bishop of S. Asaph. A.D. I686.1
On every day of perambulation, the Incumbent or Curate, and the
Church-Wardens and other parishioners, that are to make the perambula
tion, are to meet together at the Parish Church or Chappel, and there to
have the prayers appointed for the day : or in case the perambulation that
day will be so large that they cannot well afford time for the full Prayers,
yet at least the Minister ought to begin there with the Confession, Absolu
tion and Lord's Prayer; and for all the rest of the office for Morning
Prayer, he may bring it in, in parts, at the severall standings in the peram
bulation, together with the Psalms and Hymns, and Lessons and Prayers
that are here recommended for this Purpose.
At every Standing there ought to be used one or more Psalms, or
Hymns, a Lesson or Epistle and Gospell, or one of the three Creeds, or
the ten Commandements, and one or more of the following Collects or
Prayers. There may be fewer or more according to the time.
In one Standing where there is a more remarkable bound to be remem-
bred, it is very fitt that there the Minister should hear one of the Children
or of the others there present, say his Catechism, or some part of it ; as
either the Creed, or Commandements, or the Doctrine of Sacraments, etc.
And in one of the most remarkable Standings it will be fitt to use the
Litany ; especially if the perambulation should be upon a Wednesday or a
Friday, because the Church requires the use of the Litany on those days.
For Psalms to be used in the perambulation, beside the 95th, 96th,
6yth and the looth, which are used in the office of Common Prayer; I
[1-1 this note in Sancroft's hand.]
249
250 APPENDIX II. TO CHAPTER VI L
think fitt to recommend these that follow, i, 8, 15, 19, 23, 24, 33, 34,
37, 65, 103, 104, 107, 133, 144, 145, 147, 148.
For Hymns I recommend the use of the Te Deum, and the Benedicite.
For Collects and Epistles and Gospells, those that are appointed in the
Church for the ist and 2d Sunday in Advent; For the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th,
or 6th Sunday after Epiphany : For Septuagesima, Sexagesima or Quin-
quagesima : For the 3d Sunday in Lent or the 5th Sunday after Easter :
For the ist Sunday after Trinity; or for any other Sunday after Trinity,
especially the 4th or the 8th.
Of all these Collects, Epistles, and Gospells, there may be used one at
a Standing, such as the Minister shall chuse. I also recommend the read
ing of that part of the Gospell, Math. 6. 24, till the end of the Chapter ;
or the Parable of the sower, Math. 13, from the ist to the 9th verse ; with
our Saviour's Interpretation from the i8th till the 23d verse. Other such
parts of Scripture the Minister may chuse at his discretion. But whatso
ever Lesson he reads it will be fitt to use the Collect of the 2d Sunday in
Advent after that which he has read.
For Prayers (beside the Litany as before-mentioned) it will be fitt to
use the Prayers, or Thanksgivings, for rain, or for fair weather as there
shall be Occasion ; also the Collect or Prayer for all Conditions of men,
and the generall Thanksgiving; Also the Thanksgiving for Peace and
Deliverance from our Enemies, and the Thanksgiving for restoring public
peace.
In the end of Every day of perambulation, the Minister ought to bring
the People to Church with him, and there to read the Evening Prayer if
the time will permitt ; or at least to read the last part of it, from the 2d
Lord's Prayer to the Blessing.
(f. 23*5) I am sensible of the great Inconveniences that happen, and
the differences that often arise through the neglect of those yearly peram
bulations which the Law has required to be made in every parish by the
Incumbent and Church-Wardens and other parishioners. I therefore re
quire you to perform your Duty according to Law every year, and this
year particularly in going your self if you are able, or otherwise in getting
one that is able to goe for you with your Wardens and other parishioners
over all the bounds of your parish, and especially those that are doubtfull,
to the end that they may be kept in memory, if they are not allready quite
forgotten.
And I desire you to perform this as becometh Christians, with Prayer
and Thanksgiving to God, and with usefull Lessons and Admonitions to those
that shall walk the bounds with you. For which purpose I desire you to
gett your self a Copy of the Directions that I have sent to the Rurall
Deans for this purpose, and to observe those Directions in your peram
bulation.
APPENDIX II. TO CHAPTER VII. 251
You are to present the Church-Wardens, if they refuse to walk the
bounds with you.
I Commend you to the Grace of God and remain.
* * «
I 1 wrote to the Bishop, to take Notice of the 4th part of the Homily
for Rogation -week, compos'd on purpose for these daies : which he pro-
misd to doe the next perambulation.
{Endorsed} Bishop of S. Asaph for Rogation. I686.1
f1"1 this note in Sancroffs hand.}
CHAPTER VIII.
DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE : DIRECTION AND
PRIVATE CONFESSION.
IT is not intended in this chapter to give a complete account of
the discipline which prevailed throughout our period ; but the object
in view has been rather to give a certain number of cases which will
show that discipline was not altogether unknown in the Church of
England, and if necessary could be invoked for the layman as well
as for the clergyman.
Thorndike bears witness to the need of discipline, even if rarely
exercised.
If a Christian, after Baptism, fall into any grievous sin, voiding the
effect of Baptism, can it fall within the sense of a Christian to imagine ;
That hee can bee restored by a Lord have mercy upon mee ? No, it must
cost him hot tears, and sighs, and groans, and extraordinary prayers, with
fasting and almes ; to take Revenge upon himself, to appease Gods Wrath,
and to mortifie his Concupiscence ; If hee mean not to leave an entrance for
the same sin again. If his sin bee notorious, so much the more; Because
hee must then satisfie the Church, that hee doth what is requisite to satisfie
God ; that is, to appease his wrath, and to recover his Grace. The Church
may bee many ways hindred, to take account of notorious sin. But the
Power of the Keyes, which God hath trusted it with, is exercised only in
keeping such sinners from the Communion, till the Church bee so satis
fied.
And for this Exercise, the time of Lent hath always been deputed by
the Church.1
The particular discipline which the Church of England every
Ash Wednesday in the Commination Service desires to see restored
had already fallen into abeyance2 before the time of Edward VI. in
whose first Prayer Book the wish begins to appear. I do not know
if this primitive expulsion of penitents from the church early
1 Herbert Thorndike, Just Weights and Measures, London, Martin, etc., 1662, p.
1 20, ch. xviii.
2 A full and quite sympathetic account of the mediaeval discipline at the beginning
of Lent is given in a sermon preached on Ash Wednesday about 1793 by Sir Adam
Gordon. (Collection of Sermons, London, Stockdale, 1796, p. 56.)
252
DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 253
in Lent, and restoration on Maundy Thursday,1 exist at this
moment anywhere, either in the East or in the West. But various
other forms of discipline were known in the Church of England
throughout our period.
With the Restoration the Spiritual Courts began again to be
active, for in 1679 the lawyers reprinted at Oxford Lyndwood's Pro
vinciate. But the Courts Christian were not popular in the time of
James the First, and their revival' does not' seem to have been wel
comed by the Puritans, who, though they were quite willing to see
discipline exercised upon others, yet did not so well relish it when
applied to themselves.
On Nov. 9, 1663, one Blackburne, a Roundhead, comes to Mr.
Pepys with gossip against the Duke of Albemarle and the late King,
which Pepys does not seem to have been unwilling to hear. And
further :
He says that many pious ministers of the word of God, some thousands
of them, do now beg their bread : and told me how highly the present
clergy carry themselves every where, so as that they are hated and laughed
at by everybody ; among other things, for their excommunications, which
they send upon the least occasions almost that can be. And I am con
vinced in my judgement, not only from his discourse but my thoughts in
general, that the present clergy will never heartily go down with the
generality of the commons of England ; they have been so used to liberty
and freedom, and they are so acquainted with the pride and debauchery of
the present clergy.
There is an instance of Sancroft, while Archbishop of Canter
bury, suspending one of his suffragans, Dr. Thomas Wood, Bishop
of Lichfield and Coventry, for non-residence and other ofTences.
The instrument is given at length by Dr. D'Oyly, from Bancroft's
Register.2
In 1695, Dr. Watson, Bishop of St. Davids, was deprived by
the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Tenison, for simony and other
offences. Dr. Watson applied to the Court of King's Bench for a
1 A writer in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal (1905, vol. xviii. p. 419: 1907,
vol. xix. p. 80) has printed four cases of public penance in our period for breach of the
seventh commandment, and takes occasion to say that a restoration of this discipline
is desired every year in the Commination Service of the Church of England. That
the revival of the particular penance of which instances are given by this writer is
yearly wished for in the Commination Service can hardly be accepted. The discipline
at the beginning of Lent, the restoration of which is much to be wished, was already
obsolete in 1549, and it is this that is spoken of in the book of Common Prayer.
2 George D'Oyly, Life of William Sancroft, London, John Murray, 1821, vol. i.,
p. 194.
to
s
254 DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE.
prohibition, and the litigation went on into the reign of Queen
Anne.1
Chamberlayne thus describes the process for the degradation of
a clerk :
And Fourthly, Deprivatio ab Officio, when a Minister is wholly and for
ever deprived of his Orders ; and this is Depositio or Degradatio, and is
commonly for some heinous Crime, meriting Death, and is performed by
the Bishop in a solemn manner, pulling off from the Criminal his Vest
ments, and other Ensigns of his Order ; and this in the Presence of the
Civil Magistrate, to whom he is then delivered to be punished, as a Lay
man for the like Offence.2
Of this we have a very marked example in the case of Samuel
Johnson, Vicar of Coringham in Essex, in the diocese of London,
in the reign of James the Second. He appears to have committed
an offence which no Government could overlook, namely, an attempt
to seduce from their allegiance the men in the King's army and
navy. Of this offence he was found guilty in the Court of King's
Bench, and sentenced to stand three times in the pillory, and to be
whipped by the common hangman from Newgate to Tyburn.3
But out of consideration for the Church it was determined to take
away his Orders from him before submitting him to so humiliating
a punishment.
That apprehending 'twou'd be a Scandal to the Clergy to have so
infamous a Punishment inflicted on a Minister, they desir'd Mr. Johnson
might be first degraded : in order to which, being a Prisoner in the King's
Bench, in the Diocess of the Bishop of Winchester, he was summon'd to
appear the 2oth of November in the Convocation-house of St. Paul's, in the
Diocess of London, his Living being within that Diocess, and brought
thither by Habeas Corpus, where he found the Bishops of Durham, Ro
chester, and Peterborough, Commissioners to exercise the Jurisdiction of
the Bishop of London during his Suspension, with some Clergymen, and
many Spectators : A Libel was exhibited against him, charging him with
great Misbehaviours, tho none were specify 'd nor prov'd. That Mr.
Johnson demanded a Copy of the Libel, and an Advocate ; both which the
Bishops deny'd, and immediately proceeded to Sentence ; That he shou'd
be declared an Infamous Person : That he should be deprived of his Rectory :
That he should be a mere Layman, and no Clerk ; and be deprived of all
1 Sir Robert Phillimore, The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England, London,
Stevens, 1873, vol. i. p. 84.
2 John Chamberlayne, Magnae Britanniae Notitia, London, 22nd edition, 1708,
p. 256. This paragraph is also to be found in the thirty-eighth edition, 1755, part i.
p. 194.
3 These particulars are taken from the entry in Compton's Register, pars i.
fo. 90. b. See English Historical Review, 1914.
DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 255
Right and Privilege of Priesthood: That he should be degraded thereof, and
of all Vestments and Habits of Priesthood. Against which Proceedings Mr.
Johnson protested, as being against Law, and the i32d. Canon, not being
done by his own Diocesan : but his Protestation was refus'd, as was also
his Appeal to the King in Chancery. After which they proceeded to de
grade him, by putting a Square Cap on his Head, and then taking it off ;
by pulling off his Gown and Girdle, which he demanded as his proper
Goods bought with his Mony : which they promis'd to send him, but he
cou'd not get 'em till he paid Twenty Shillings. Then they put a Bible
into his Hands, which he not parting with readily, they took it from him
by Force.1
It is added, however, that in the ceremony of degradation the
Bishops omitted what was said to be a very important circum
stance. They omitted to take off his cassock.
It happen'd they were guilty of an Omission, in not stripping him of
his Cassock, which as slight a particular as it might seem, render'd his
Degradation imperfect, and afterwards sav'd him his Benefice,2
For after the Revolution, Johnson returned to his living,
and, no doubt the parish being favourably disposed, they held
that this small omission nullified the degradation. With less
attention to niceties and more to the Canons, the House of
Commons resolved that the degradation was illegal, having been
performed by the Commissioners, and not by Johnson's proper
Diocesan, the Bishop of London.8
Whiston, who, as Macaulay says, seems ready to believe in
everything except the Holy Trinity, was, in the reign of Queen
Anne, banished from the University of Cambridge for his Arian
opinions. He has printed the documents connected with this pro
cess. There seems no doubt about the want of orthodoxy in his
opinions : what astonishes us to-day is that an English University
should take the slightest notice of such a trifle. The following is
the sentence pronounced on October 30, 1710.
In the name of God, Amen.
I Charles Roderick, Vice chancellor of this University, do decree, de
clare, and pronounce, that Mr. William Whiston, Mathematick Professor
of this University, having asserted and spread abroad divers Tenets con
trary to Religion receiv'd and established by Publick Authority in this
Realm, hath incurred the Penalty of the Statute, and that he is Banished
from this University.4
1 Some Memorials of Mr. Samuel Johnson, p. xv. in Works, London, Darby, 1710.
2 ibid. p. xii. 3 Journals of the House of Commons, June 24, 1689, vol. x. p. 194.
4 William Whiston, An Historical Preface to Primitive Christianity reviv'd,
London, 1711, Appendix, p. 27.
256 DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE.
Whiston tells us himself that he was refused communion by the
Bishop of Bristol in I/26.1
In like manner, the Rev. John Jackson was refused communion
atBath in I/35.2 He had been denied his promotion from B.A. to
M.A. at Cambridge in 1718 on account of his opinions, which in
the main were those of Whiston and Clarke. It is said that Jack
son's tracts are of little importance and they derive what importance
they have from the notice which Waterland took of them.3
Thomas Wilson, the holy Bishop of Sodor and Man, suffered
severely in his exercise of ecclesiastical discipline. In 1719 Mrs.
Home, the wife of the Governor of the Island, falsely accused Mrs.
Puller, a widow woman of good character, of fornication with Sir
James Pool. Thereupon Archdeacon Horrobin refused Commun
ion to Mrs. Puller. The matter was carried into the Bishop's Court
and Mrs. Home was sentenced to ask pardon. This she refused to
do, and treated the Ecclesiastical Law with contempt; whereupon
she was censured ; but the Archdeacon admitted her to Communion ;
and for this offence the Archdeacon himself was suspended.
Instead of appealing to the Archbishop of York as Metropolitan,
the Archdeacon threw himself on the Civil power, and the Bishop,
with his two Vicars-general, was imprisoned on June 29, 1722 for
non-payment of fines inflicted by the Governor, and detained in
prison for two months. Here the Bishop appealed from Caesar's
servants to Caesar himself, with the result that
The King and Council reversed all the proceedings of the officers of
the island, declaring them to be oppressive, arbitrary, and unjust ; but they
could grant no costs.
* * *
The King offered him the Bishoprick of Exeter, vacant by the trans
lation of Dr. Blackburn to the See of York, to re-imburse him ; but he
could not be prevailed on to quit his own Diocese. His Majesty therefore
promised to defray his expences out of the privy purse, and gave it in
charge to Lord Townsend, Lord Carleton, and Sir Robert Walpole, to
put it into his remembrance ; but the King going soon afterwards to Han
over, and dying before his return, this promise was never fulfilled.4
1 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Whiston, sec. ed. London,
Whiston and White, 1753, part i. p. 284.
2 A narrative of the Case of the Reverend Mr. Jackson being refused the Sacrament
of the Lord's Supper at Bath by Dr. Coney Minister of Bath, London, Noon, 1736.
•s 3 gee D.N.B. under John Jackson.
4 Thomas Wilson, Works, ed. C. Crattwell, sec. ed. London, Dilly, vol. i. pp. 29-
32.
DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 257
Swift gives us an instance of what they could do in Ireland in
the way of discipline.
I am just going to perform a very good office ; it is to assist with the
archbishop in degrading a parson who couples all our beggars ... I
am come back, and have deprived the parson, who by a law here is to be
hanged the next couple he marries : he declares to us that he is resolved to
be hanged, only desired that when he was to go to the gallows, the arch
bishop would take off his excommunication. Is not he a good catholic ?
and yet he is but a Scotchman.1
The study of the records of the Archdeacons' Courts reveals to
us that they were most occupied in the punishment of two kinds of
offences, slander and porneia, which the politicians in the opinion
of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu considered acts more to be en
couraged than frowned upon.2 Chamberlayne gives this account
of the penance.
This power of Excommunication the Bishop may delegate to any grave
Priest with the Chancellor.
Besides the general Censure of the Church which respects Church-Com
munion, there is another which toucheth the Body of the Delinquent,
called Public Penance, when any one is compelled to confess in publick his
Fault, and to bewail it before the whole Congregation in the Church, which
is done in this manner : The Delinquent is to stand in the Church-Porch
upon some Sunday, barehead and barefeet, in a white Sheet, and a
white rod in his Hand, there bewailing himself, and begging every one that
passes by to pray for him ; then to enter the Church, falling down and
kissing the Ground ; then in the middle of the Church is he or she emi
nently placed in the sight of all the People and over against the Minister,
who declares the Foulness of his Crime, odious to God, and scandalous
to the Congregation ; that God can no way be satisfied but by applying
Christ's Sufferings ; nor the Congregation, but by an humble acknowledging
of his Sins, and testifying his sincere Repentance and Sorrow, not in Words
only, but with Tears, and promising there, in the sight of God and his holy
Angels, that by God's Assistance, and by Prayer, Meditation, and daily Works
of Piety, he will endeavour hereafter more carefully to watch against the
Temptations of the World, the Allurements of the Flesh, and the Snares of
the Devil : which being done, and the Priest in Christ's Name, pronouncing
the Remission of Sins, the Penitent humbly beseeches the Congregation
to pardon him in that great Scandal against them, and receive him into
their holy Communion, and account him again a Member of their Church ;
and in testimony thereof, out of their Christian Charity, to vouchsafe to say
with him aloud the Lord's Prayer. And this way of the Church of England,
1 Letter of Jonathan Swift, dated Dublin, Nov. 17, 1726. (Works, edited by Walter
Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. xvii. p. 117.)
2 See above, Introductory Chapter, p. 2.
258 DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE.
appears by divers Writers to be the ancient way used by the Primitive
Churches.1
This open penance was witnessed by Mr. Pepys on July 16, 1665 :
so by coaches to church four miles off; where a pretty good sermon, and
a declaration of penitence of a man that had undergone the Churche's cen
sure for his wicked life.
Mr. Pepys himself ought, if justice had been consulted, to have
done penance of this kind often enough.
In the following case it will be seen how disturbed the congrega
tion was by the entrance of an excommunicate person into the
church.
Scotter, co. Lincoln. 1667-8, Jan. 19. Mem. That on Septuagesima
Sunday, one Francis Drury, an excommunicate person, came into the
church in time of divine service in the morning, and being admonisht by
me to begon[e], hee obstinately refused, whereupon the whole congrega
tion departed, and after the same manner in the afternoon the same day he
came againe, and refusing againe to goe out, the whole congregation againe
went home, soe that little or noe service [was] performed that day. I pre
vented his farther coming in that manner as he threatened, by order from
the justice, upon the statute of Q. Eliz. concerning the molestation and
disturbance of public preachers.
Wm. Carrington, Rector?
The crime for which Francis Drury was excommunicated does
not appear. It should be noted, however, that the congregation
was against him. Nowadays public opinion would certainly sym
pathise with the criminal.
Penance had to be done for drunkenness. This is the confession
of a Verger at Durham.
Whereas by the sin of drunkennesse I have done dishonour to God
and given offence to my superiours of this Cathedral, and scandal to all other
good Christian people : I doe here humbly confesse, and am heartily sorry
for the same ; and doe earnestly beg God's and the Church's pardon ; and
doe promise that (by God's grace) I will never offend in like manner for the
future.3
More than a century later the sin of drunkenness is punished in
a parish clerk. In January 1 799 the Dean of Middleham cited the
parish clerk into his court and pronounced the following "sentence :
1 John Chamberlayne, Magnae Britanniae Notitia, London, 1708, 22nd edition, p.
255- A g°od part of this appears in the thirty-eighth edition, 1755, part i. p. 194.
2R. E. C. Waters, Parish Registers in England, London, Roberts, 1883, p. 77.
3 June 16, 1686. Roger Blakiston's Penance in The remains of Denis Granville,
Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. p. 135.
DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 259
That Thomas Ibbotson should be suspended from the office of parish
clerk, without forfeiting the wages, until after the loth day of February
then next, being the first Sunday in Lent ; that he do not approach the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper on that day, that, by the prayers of Lent,
he might be fitted for it at the festival of Easter ; and, lastly, that, on the
first Sunday of the ensuing Lent, he should stand during service until
the Nicene creed was read, before the font under the gallery, and there
depart to a private seat, after having read distinctly the following acknow
ledgement, viz.
" I, Thomas Ibbotson, do acknowledge that, on the day of the Feast
of Circumcision, I behaved very irreverently in the House of God : that
I interrupted the divine service, and conducted myself in such a manner,
both in the church and out of it, as to give just cause of offence to the
congregation then present : that I was led to this misconduct by resent
ment, and not being perfectly sober at the time, for which I beg pardon of
Almighty God, and do promise to order myself with greater sobriety and
decency for the time to come." 1
The next few cases deal with penance done for breaches of the
seventh commandment.
On Sunday last a Woman did Penance in the Parish Church of St.
Bride's, by standing in a white Sheet, with a Wand in her Hand, on a
Stool in the middle Isle during the time of Divine Service, for Adultery and
Fornication, and having a Bastard Child in the Absence of her Husband.2
This is an instance of the manner in which public penance was
performed. In the appendix to this chapter will be found the
schedule of a like punishment carried out in the same year.
Stephen Hales, the famous physiologist and chaplain to the
prince afterwards King George the Third, died in 1761. He is
said to have been the last of the clergy who made his female
parishioners do penance.3
But this can hardly be. Penance was done at Pittington and
Melsonby in I77O.4 And the poet Wordsworth has left on record
that he saw a woman doing penance in the church in a white
sheet some time before the death of his mother in I778.5 At
Hurstmonceaux public penance is said to have taken place for the
last time about i8oo.6
1 Documents relating to the Foundation and Antiquities of the Collegiate Church
of Middleham, ed. William Atthill, Camden Society, 1847, p. 42.
2 Fog's Weekly Journal, No. 267, Saturday, Dec. 15, 1733.
3 Albert Hartshorne, Memoirs of a Roy at Chaplain, 1905, p. 314.
4 Memorials of St. Giles's, Durham, Surtees Society, 1896, vol. xcv. p. 160 note.
5 Memoirs of William Wordsworth, ed. by Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards
Bishop of Lincoln ; Moxon, 1851, vol. i. p. 8.
6 Augustus J. C. Hare, Memorials of a quiet life, Strahan, 1872, vol. i. p. 143.
17*
260 FORBIDDEN TIMES OF MARRIAGE.
In the appendix to this chapter is a schedule of penance for
slander, performed as late as 1 801 , thus only twelve years before 1813.
The Courts in the early part of our period seem to have been
active in punishing those who married without a licence in times
forbidden. John Ayliffe, who most likely represents the general
practice of the Courts before 1725, is against marriage in Lent
without licence, but not in Advent. This agrees with the mediaeval
custom in England, where Advent was not a time of fasting :
for tho' the Banns of Matrimony are seldom or never published in Lent, &c.
according to that Law ; yet People may marry at that Time with Licences.
But as for the time of Advent which was never observ'd in our Church
as a Fast, there is no Foundation for such a Prohibition with us.1
Yet notwithstanding Ayliffe's opinion, it would seem that licences
were demanded for marriages celebrated in the times prohibited by
the old canon law ; that is, from the first Sunday in Advent to the
Octave of the Epiphany, inclusive ; from Septuagesima to the Octave
of Easter, inclusive ; from the first day of the Rogations till the
seven days of Whitsuntide be passed.2
Thus a licence is required for marrying in Whitsun week.
Twickenham. 1665. Christopher Mitchell and Ann Colcot, married, 4
June, by permission of Sir Richard Chaworth, it being within the octaves
of Pentecost.3
Mr. Pepys on March 21, 1669 notes a licence to our young
people to be married this Lent.
A little later and a couple were excommunicated for marrying
in a time forbidden.
1676
April 1 6. I publishd an Excommunication sent out of the Arch-
Deacon's Court at Nottingham and bearing date Feb. 29,
1675 against William Smith and Eliz. his wife for being
marryed in a time prohibited and refusing to appear, after
due summons, to give account of the Same.
* # *
April 23rd. I published the Absolution of William Smith and his wife,
which was sent out of the Court at Retford the 21 instant.4
1 John Ayliffe, Parergon, London, 1726. Of Marriage, p. 365.
2 Lyndwood, Provinciate, Lib. iii. tit. 16, de decimis, ad verba Nubentium solemniis,
Oxford, 1679, p. 185.
3 Quoted in R. E. C. Waters, Parish Registers in England, London, Roberts,
1883, p. 33.
4 Harry Gill and Everard L. Guilford, The Rector's Book, Clay worth, Notts, Nott
ingham, Saxton, 1910, pp. 18, 19.
DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE. 261
Notices of the times in which Marriage is forbidden continued to
appear in the yearly Almanacks. In Pond's Almanack for the year
of our Lord God 1690, published at Cambridge by John Hayes, the
times at which marriage is not to be solemnised are given as in
Lyndwood.
The Ladies Diary for 1752 preserves a notice of the same times,
during which matrimony may not be solemnised. Septuagesima
is marked with Marriage goes out in black letter, very striking to
the eye. Low Sunday is marked with Marriage comes in, in the
same type. The Saturday before Rogation Sunday is marked
with Marriage goes out ; and Marriage comes in is against Trinity
Sunday. Advent Sunday is marked: Marriage goes out till I3th
Jan.
In a collection of sermons for family reading, which had passed
through four editions, there is a note preceding the sermons for
Advent, in which the editor says :
This is also one of the seasons, from the beginning of which to the end
of the octave of the Epiphany, the solemnizing of marriages is forbidden,
without special licence.
and again at Septuagesima there is
From Septuagesima Sunday until the Octaves after Easter, the solemn
izing of marriage is forbidden by the Canon Law.1
The draught of new Canons in 1714 for regulating marriage for
bids marriages on Ash Wednesday, Passion Week and the 3Oth of
January, only, either with licence, or after banns.2
<s* A considerable power in discipline was left in the hands of the
parish priest in 1662, that of repulsion from communion, as well as
insistence upon the names of intending communicants being given to
him uat least some time the day before". It is a pity that the
layman so rarely observes this rubric. The man who does not
send notice to the parish priest is as lawless as any of our high
placed divines.
A very curious and edifying instance of voluntary penance is re
corded of Dr. Johnson :
Fifty years ago, Madam, on this day, I committed a breach of filial piety,
which has ever since lain heavy on my mind, and has not till this day been
1 Samuel Clapham, Sermons, selected and abridged, London, Rivington, 4th ed.
1813, vol. i. pp. 2 and 314. First edition 1803.
2 See D. Wilkins, Concilia, 1737, vol. iv. p. 660.
262 DISCIPLINE AND PENANCE.
expiated. My father, you recollect, was a bookseller, and had long been in
the habit of attending Uttoxeter market, and opening a stall for the sale of his
books during that day. Confined to his bed by indisposition, he requested
me, this time fifty years ago, to visit the market, and attend the stall in his
place. But, Madam, my pride prevented me from doing my duty, and I gave
my father a refusal. To do away the sin of this disobedience, I this day went
in a postchaise to Uttoxeter, and going into the market at the time of high
business, uncovered my head, and stood with it bare an hour before the
stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the
standers-by and the inclemency of the weather ; a penance by which I trust
I have propitiated heaven for this only instance, I believe, of contumacy
toward my father.1
The fact of the penance having been performed may be assumed,
but the language is unlike that of Johnson.
A curious form of discipline seems to have been exercised at the
end of the eighteenth century by the Dean of Middleham in York
shire. He made the following entry in his register of burials :
Burials, October 29th. 1792.
I enter under the head of burials as spiritually dead the names of
JOHN SADLER,
Clerk to Mr John Breare, Attorney-at-Law, of this place ; and
CHRISTOPHER FELTON,
Clerk to Mr Luke Yarker, Attorney-at-Law, of this place ; first for
irreverent behaviour in church a second time, after public reproof on a
former occasion of the same sort ; and, secondly, when mildly admonished
by me not to repeat the same, they both made use of the most scandalous
and insolent words concerning myself, for which I thought proper to pass
a public censure upon them after sermon (though they were wilfully absent)
in the face of the congregation ; and enter the mention of the same in this
book, that the names of those insolent young men may go to posterity as
void of all reverence to God and his ministers. Witness my hand,
ROBT. B. NICKOLLS, Dean.
Witness, ROGR. DAWSON, Regr.2
In the diocese of Salisbury, so recently as 1900, a churchwarden,
after having accepted office, desired not to be admitted. At the
Bishop's Visitation, held in Dorchester, the proceedings are reported
in a local newspaper as follows.
Mr. Cornish Browne intimated that he did not wish to be admitted.
The Bishop, after consulting the legal authorities, said he did not think
he could refuse, after having accepted office. He might be excommunicated
1 Minor Anecdotes by the Rev. Richard Warner, in Johnsonian Miscellanies, ed. by
G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1897, vol. ii. p. 427.
2 Documents relating to the Foundation and Antiquities of the Collegiate Church of
Middleham, ed. William Atthill, Camden Society, 1847, p. 42.
PRIVATE CONFESSION BY INDIVIDUALS. 263
according to ecclesiastical law. Of course no such penalty could be thought
of, but he would point out that he might be compelled, if the parish chose
to take action against him. He considered it would be wise for him to take
the office.
Mr. Cornish Browne, after consultation with the Rector : I will be ad
mitted.1
PRIVATE CONFESSION AND DIRECTION.
In dealing with this matter it may be considered under three
heads :
i. As exhibited in the practice of individuals.
ii. As recommended in current books of devotion.
iii. As treated by divines and other authors of good repute.
THE PRACTICE OF INDIVIDUALS.
That the practice of private confession and spiritual direction
was widely spread in the Church of England immediately after the
Restoration there is good evidence to show. Even in the days
before the Restoration when, as Dr. Johnson could say, that
a wild democracy had overturned King, Lords, and Commons; and
that a set of Republican Fanatics, who would not bow at the name of
JESUS had taken possession of all the livings and all the parishes in the
kingdom,2
and when only one church in London was left to churchmen, John
Evelyn went to London to visit Dr. Jeremy Taylor, " using him
thenceforward as my ghostly father".3 And after the death of
his daughter Mary, some years later, there were found letters to
her ghostly father asking him not to despise her for her many errors,4
though from her character she must have needed such excuses but
little.
Another gracious character of that age was Mrs. Godolphin,
and we are told that she designed to live by herself at Hereford,
so as to be under the direction of the Dean of that church, who
had long been her spiritual father.5 I doubt if" the more minute
1 Dorset County Chronicle, No. 4167, June 28, 1900.
2 Arthur Murphy, An essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson, London,
1792, p. 108.
3 Diary of John Evelyn, 1655, March 31, ed. Bray and Wheatley, Bickers, 1879,
vol. ii. p. 76. He writes to Dr. Taylor " as to my confessor " on Ap. 27, 1656 (iii.
215).
4 ibid. March 16, 1684-85, p. 459.
5 The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p.
67. She died in 1678.
264 PRIVATE CONFESSION BY INDIVIDUALS.
Confessions " for which she kept " an account of her actions and
resolutions " x were for private confession, but they may have been.
She counts it among the special mercies that she had the " assistance
of a spirittuall Guide"2 which she owed to the extraordinary care
of a pious and excellent Mother.3
There is the following account of the deathbed of Dr. Robert
Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln after the Restoration :
After his taking his bed, and about a day before his death, he desired
his Chaplain, Mr. Pullin, to give him absolution : and at his performing
that office, he pulled off his cap, that Mr. Pullin might lay his hand upon
his bare head.4
Clarendon's daughter, who married the Duke of York, is said
by Gilbert Burnet to have practised " secret confession " before she
was reconciled to the Church of Rome. Her confessor was Morley,
Bishop of Winchester, to whom succeeded Blandford, who died
Bishop of Worcester.5 But for all this we depend only upon
Burnet's evidence, which is always more or less untrustworthy.
Bishop Patrick, when at Covent Garden, made some effort to
hinder the Duke of York from becoming a papist.
For I had some time before been with him, and restored him some
money of which a servant of his thought she had wronged him. This
pleased him mightily, and he expressed great satisfaction to hear that
people came and confessed their sins to us, of which we could not absolve
them, unless in case of wrong they made satisfaction.6
On his return from France in 1679, the Dean of Durham, as
he was soon to be, made a general confession to Dr. Gunning, the
Bishop of Ely. Thus he speaks of it :
Mem : That I prepare a draught of my whole life by way of confession
in order to demand an absolution (in the name of God) from the Rt.
reverend Bp. Gunning, my first spiritual father.
Mem : that I did, the evening before this celebration, unburthen my
conscience to this good Bishop (my spirituall guide) and submitted my
1 The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p. 188.
2 ibid. p. 216. See also pp. 46, 160. *ibid. p. 221.
4 Isaak Walton, Lives of Dr. John Donne, etc. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1805, vol.
ii. p. 258.
5 Bishop Burnet's History of his own time, sec. ed. Oxford, 1833, vol. i. pp. 307
and 566.
6 The autobiography of Symon Patrick, Bishop of Ely, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1839,
p. 78.
PRIVATE CONFESSION BY INDIVIDUALS. 265
soule to his test and examination, receiving after the same a solemne
absolution on my knees.1
In 1682, Ken preaching on the death of Lady Maynard reveals
her practice of confession to him :
As to myself, I have had the honour to know her near twenty years ;
and to be admitted to her most intimate thoughts, and I cannot but think,
upon the utmost of my observation, that she always preserved her baptis
mal innocence, that she never committed any one mortal sin, which put
her out of the state of grace ; insomuch, that after all the frequent and
severe examinations, she made of her own conscience, her confessions were
made up of no other than sins of infirmity, and yet even for them, she had
as deep an humiliation, and as penitential a sorrow, as high a sense of the
divine forgiveness, and loved as much, as if she had much to be forgiven :
so that after a life of above forty years, nine of which were spent in the
court, bating her involuntary failings, which are unavoidable, and for
which allowances are made, in the covenant of grace, she "kept herself
unspotted from the world," and if it may be affirmed of any, I dare ven
ture to affirm it of this gracious woman, that by the peculiar favour of
heaven, she past from the font unsullied to her grave.2
Ken did not take the oaths after the Revolution, and writing
to Tenison the Archbishop of Canterbury, as attending Queen
Mary on her .deathbed, reproaches him with having drawn from
her no confession of the Wrong she had done her own father, James
the Second. He opens his letter thus :
Sir when I heard of the Sickness of the Late Illustrious Princess, whom
I had never fail'd to recommend to God, in my Daily Prayers, and that
your self was Her Confessor, I could not but hope that at least on Her
Death-bed, you would have dealt faithfully with Her.3
A few pages farther on ;
A Conscientious Faithful Confessor, especially on the Death-bed is
One of a Thousand, who will always be desired and valu'd, and rever'd.4
Tenison took no notice of the attack, " his relations with the
Queen being under the seal of confession ".5 Ken's recommendation
of confession to the Winchester scholar as a preparation for com
munion will be seen below.
Dr. John Sharp, afterwards Archbishop of York, was " Confessor
and Spiritual Guide " to Lord Chancellor Finch, the first Earl of
1 The Remains of Denis Granville, Surtees Society, 1865, vol. xlvii. pp. 40, 41.
2 Thomas Ken, Sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Hon. The Lady
Margaret Mainard, at Little Easton, in Essex, June 30, 1682, in The Prose Works . . .
of . . . Thomas Ken, ed. by J. T. Round, London, Rivington, 1838, p. 129.
SA Dutiful Letter from a Prelate to a Prelate, London, 1703.
*ibid. p. ii. 5D.N.B. sub voce Tenison.
266 PRIVATE CONFESSION BY INDIVIDUALS.
Nottingham.1 Later on, when Archbishop of York, he was
director to Queen Anne.2
A chaplain to the Queen's Forces in the Province of New York,
by name John Sharp, describes in his funeral sermon the deathbed
of Lady Cornbury :
She received the Sacrament and Absolution of the Church and desired
our prayers might be continued for her in the language of our holy Mother.3
This incident is mentioned, as it shows that Church practices did
not cease in far distant colonies in Queen Anne's time.
The Spectator prints a letter as it were from a penitent to his
confessor, and it begins :
I know not with what Words to express to you the Sense I have of the
high Obligation you have laid upon me, in the Penance you enjoin'd me of
doing some Good or other to a Person of Worth every Day I live.4
In a letter from T. Allen dated Sept. I, 1711, the character of a
young man is spoken of; and it is said :
he had his principles from Dr. Alston who is still his spiritual Guide.5
Clayton, the Chaplain of the Collegiate Church at Manchester,
writes to Wesley from Manchester in 1733 :
Poor Miss Potter ! I wonder not that she is fallen. Where humility
is not the foundation, the superstructure cannot be good. And, yet, I am
sorry to hear the tidings of her, especially that she has a great man for her
confessor, who dissuades her from constant communion.6
It might be thought that a confessor would be a better judge
than anyone else of the frequency with which the penitent might
approach the Holy Table.
Fielding more than once bears witness to the practice of con
fession, penance, and absolution in the Church of England of his day.
Parson Thwackum in Tom Jones says:
Who but an atheist could think of leaving the world without having first
made up his account ? without confessing his sins, and receiving that absolu
tion which he knew he had one in the house duly authorised to give him?
1 [John Hildrop,] The Contempt of the Clergy Considered, London, 1739, p. 65.
2 The Life of John Sharp, D.D. Lord Archbishop of York, London, Rivington,
1825, vol. i. p. 301.
3 John Sharp, A sermon preached . . . in New York in America, New York, Brad
ford, 1706, p. 19. Was he the author of the Charter of the kingdom of Christ,
London, Morphew, 1717, and De rebus liturgicis, Thesis at Aberdeen, 1714 ?
4 Spectator, No. 27, Saturday, March 21, 1711.
8 Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, Oxford Historical Society, 1889, vol.
iii. p. 219, note.
6 L. Tyerman, The Oxford Methodists, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1873, p. 36.
PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED IN BOOKS. 267
In Joseph Andrews there is depicted a somewhat unclerical parson
who yet requires a full confession from Joseph of all his sins, when
he finds him lying on a sick bed. And in Amelia Dr. Harrison says :
1 this young gentleman will absolve me without obliging me to penance.'
' I have not yet that power,' answered the young clergyman ; ' for I am
only in deacon's orders.' *
It may be remembered that Fielding was a Whig and a Low
Churchman. He speaks highly of Hoadly's Plain Account.
Smollett was a Scotch presbyterian ; yet in Roderick Random
he makes the chaplain on board a ship in the King's service, exhort
the patient, supposed to be in danger of death, as follows :
It is incumbent on you, therefore, to prepare for the great change, by-
repenting sincerely of your sins ; of this there cannot be a greater sign, than
an ingenuous confession, which I conjure you to make without hesitation or
mental reservation.2
When the patient declares himself to be a presbyterian the chap
lain leaves him, hoping that he may not be in state of reprobation.
The same novelist, describing the deathbed of an old sea officer,
makes him say :
1 trust by the mercy of God, I shall be sure in port in a very few glasses,
and fast moored in a most blessed riding : for my good friend Jolter hath
overhauled the journal of my sins ; and by the observation he hath taken
of the state of my soul, I hope I shall happily conclude my voyage.3
Jolter is the name of a priest who was governor to the nephew.
Glass is a sand or hour glass usually taking half an hour to run out.
Later on in the same novel he speaks of
the curate (who still maintained his place of chaplain and ghostly director
in the family).4
As RECOMMENDED IN BOOKS OF DEVOTION.
In Bishop Cosin's Collection of Private Devotions, which reached
a ninth edition in 1693, there is a form for confession of sin before
Communion, prayers before and after Absolution. Under the Pre
cepts of the Church he has :
lTom Jones, Book V. ch. viii. Joseph Andrews, Book I. ch. xiii. Amelia, Book
IX. ch. viii. in Works of Henry Fielding, ed. Murphy and Browne, vol. vi. p. 263 :
vol. v. p. 70 : vol. ix. p. 167.
2 Tobias Smollett, The adventures of Roderick Random, ch. xxxiv. London,
Hutchinson, 1904, p. 233.
3 Tobias Smollett, Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, ch. Ixxiii. 1904, Hutchinson, vol.
ii. p. 8.
*ibid. ch. civ. vol. ii. p. 437.
268 PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED IN BOOKS.
5. To receive the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ
with frequent devotion, and three times a Year at least, of which times
Easter to be always one. And for better preparation thereunto, as oc
casion is, to disburthen and quiet our consciences of those sins that may
grieve us, or scruples that may trouble us, to a learned and discreet Priest,
and from him to receive advice, and the benefit of Absolution}*
In Dr. Wetenhall's directions for the sick, he recommends him
to consult with
some spiritual Guide, to whom if I have nothing to unburden myself of,
yet I apply myself to, to receive absolution?
after which, a little later on he adds :
it is fit (all meet circumstances admitting it) I proceed to partake of the
Lords Supper, before which according to the order of the Church, I receive
absolution.3
Dr. Thomas Ken advises the Winchester scholar thus :
In case Philfotheus] you do find this Examination too difficult for
you, or are afraid you shall not rightly perform it, or meet with any scruples,
or troubles of Conscience, in the practice of it, I then advise you, as the
Church does, to go to one of your Superiours in this place, to be your
Spiritual Guide, and be not ashamed to Unburthen your Soul freely to
Him, that besides His Ghostly Counsel, you may receive the benefit of
Absolution.4
In a book called A Daily Office for the Sick^ attributed to
Zachaeus Isham, chaplain to Dr. Henry Compton, Bishop of Lon
don, and dedicated to him, there occurs among the subjects for
self-examination the following questions :
6. Is there any special sin that lies heavy upon thee ?
7. Have I confess'd it to a Minister and humbly requested Absolution ? 5
A prayer after self-examination then follows with the form of
absolution as in the Visitation of the Sick, with commendations of
this form by Bishop Andrewes, Dr. Hammond, and others. This
advice appears a little before :
If the Sick Person feels his Conscience troubled with any weighty
matter ; he is exhorted by the Church, to make a special Confession of his
Sins to the Minister, that visits him : and then having testify 'd his hearty
1 John Cosin, A Collection of Private Devotions, eighth ed. London, Royston,
1681. Sign. D.
2 [Edward Wetenhall,] Enter into thy Closet, 4th ed. London, Martyn, 1672. Per
suasives, ch. 10, p. 444. The first edition is said to have been in 1666.
*ibid. p. 445.
4 Thomas Ken, A Manual of Prayers For the Use of the Scholars of Winchester
Colledge, London, John Martyn, 1675, p. 27.
6 A Daily Office for the Sick, London, Roycroft and Clavell, 1694, P- 232.
PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED IN BOOKS. 269
Repentance, he is to desire Absolution ; and to receive it in the Form of
the Church, with all possible humility, and thankfulness.
» * «
Tis fit also for him to observe; that though our Church presseth
particular Confession to a Priest, only when the Conscience is disquieted
with sins of deeper malignity, yet it doth not discountenance the more
frequent use of it ; and this too is so comprehensive a Case, as to take in
great numbers that neglect it.1
In hearing confessions himself, Dr. Granville made use of the
following form :
Begin first with the Lord's prayer, saying together
Our Father which art &c.
Vers. O Lord open thou our lipps.
Answer. And our mouth shall shew forth thy [praise].
Vers. O God make speed to save us.
Ans. O Lord make hast to helpe us.
Glory bee to the Father etc.
As it was in the beginning &c.
then Recite together psalme 139. Domine probasti. O Lord thou
hast searched mee out and knowne mee &c.
After this is said the Preist takes his place in his chaire, and requires
the Penitent to Kneell downe before him, and to answer sincerely in the
Name and Feare [of] God to such Questions as hee shall by Christ's author
ity demand of him.
It is expedient and thought good for the Ease and Incouragement of
the Penitent to have some forme of examination and answers given to him
some Convenient time before, to Consider of for the greater proffit of his
soule, and better preparation for soe solemne a [thing erased] Duty.
Then let the penitent Repeat one of the Formes of Confessions after
the Priest, with due deliberation and Intention. After which the Preist
rising up shall 2 add. O Lord I beseech thee &c.2 3 and then 3 solemnely
pronounce that excellent forme of Absolution, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then let the priest pronounce such sentences of Scripture as hee con
ceives most to edification. Reciting afterwards 4 on their knees together
ps. 32 Blessed [etc.]. Concluding with these following prayers :
Let us pray
5 i. O Lord I beseech thee favourably to receive our prayers &c.5
1. O most mercifull God whoe according to the multitude of thy mercies
[&c.] with some few alterations
or
O most Mighty God and mercifull Father &c.
2. Lord, wee beseech thee give us Grace to withstand &c.
3. O Lord whoe knowest that all our doings are nothing worth &c.
4. Lord wee pray thee that thy Grace &c.
1 Directions for the sick, § v. pp. 193, 194.
z~* interlined. *-sover pronounce. 4 interlined. 5"5 struck out.
270 PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES.
5. Allmighty God the Fountaine of all Wisdome &c.
Benediction l
THE OPINION OF DIVINES.
Thorndike has devoted a chapter to the consideration of pri
vate confession and penance, and maintains that the abuse of these
in the Church of Rome has not destroyed their use, and he is desir
ous of seeing private confession made once a year ; still more so
because the Church of England has failed of that great piece of
reformation, the retrieving of public penance, though it every year
wishes for its restoration in the beginning of the Commination
Service.2
Hamon L'estrange, a learned layman, of good repute, comment
ing on the office for the Visitation of the Sick, in a work published
just before the Restoration, says :
Confession and Absolution.] Here the Church approveth of, though
she doth not command, Auricular Confession. Many times poor soules
lye labouring under the pangs of an horrid reflex upon the number or
greatness of their sins, and the dreadful wrath of God deservedly expected
for them. In this case, no remedy comparable to an humble and sincere
confession at large.3
Bishop Pearson, in his letter on Promiscuous Ordinations, dis
suading against accepting irregular ministrations, points out that
the absolution of one whose commission is not acknowledged can
not be expected to be of any efficacy upon the bed of sickness or
on the approach of death.4
Dr. Comber, the Dean of Durham, speaks thus of confession to
the priest :
And this was so received a Doctrine in the Primitive times, that the
Confession of sins to a Priest, in case of a troubled Conscience, was
esteemed an Apostolical institution, and was a general practice, as might
be proved by innumerable testimonies of Antiquity ... we wish therefore
that our People, even in time of health (when their Conscience is troubled
for some great sin, or their souls are assaulted with a violent Temptation)
1 Bodleian Library, MS. Rawl. D. 851. if. 222-223. See also Remains of Denis
Granville, op. cit. p. 148.
2 Herbert Thorndike, Of the Laws of the Church, Book III. ch. xi. §§ 20, 21, in
Works, Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1852, Vol. IV. part i. pp. 258, 259.
3 Hamon L'estrange, The Alliance of Divine Offices, ch. 10, London, Broom,
1659, P- 298.
4 The minor Theological Works of John Pearson, ed. Edw. Churton, Oxford, 1844,
vol. ii. p. 237.
PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES. 271
would come and make their case known to their spiritual Physician, to
whom the Fathers elegantly compare the Priest in this case.1
Isaac Barrow, dealing with the Power of the Keys, speaks thus :
Now they (the pastors of the Church) may be understood to remit, or
retain sins divers ways.
1. They remit sins dispositive,
2. They remit (or retain sins) declarative. . . .
3. They remit sins imperative,. . . .
4. They remit sins dispensativk, by consigning pardon in the administra
tion of the Sacrament ; especially in conferring Baptism, whereby duly ad
ministered and undertaken, all sins are washed away ; and in the absolving
of penitents, wherein grace is exhibited and ratified by imposition of hands :
the which St. Paul calls x^P^^ to bestow grace, or favour on the
penitent.2
Wake in controversy with Bossuet writes thus :
The Church of England refuses no sort of Confession either publick or
private, which may be any way necessary to the quieting of men's con
sciences ; or to the exercising of that Power of binding and loosing, which
our Saviour Christ has left to his Church.
We have our Penitential Canons for publick Offenders : We exhort
men if they have any the least doubt or scruple, nay sometimes tho they
have none, but especially before they receive the Holy Sacrament, to con
fess their sins. We propose to them the benefit not only of Ghostly
Advice how to manage their Repentance, but the great comfort of Absolu
tion too, as soon as they shall have compleated it.
* * *
When we visit our Sick, we never fail to exhort them to make a
special Confession of their sins to him that Ministers to them : And when
they have done it, the Absolution is so full, that the Church of Rome its
self could not desire to add anything to it.3
Here is Beveridge's opinion :
But our Saviour's kingdom being, as himself saith, not of this world,
but purely spiritual, he \ that hath authorized his substitutes in the govern
ment of it, to use rewards and punishments of the same nature ; even to
admonish delinquents in his name to forsake their sins, and if they continue
obstinate, and neglect such admonitions, to excommunicate or cast them
out of his church ; and, upon their repentance, to absolve and receive them
in again. This power our Saviour first promised to St. Peter, and in him
1 Thomas Comber, A Companion to the Temple, London, 1684, Offices of Matri
mony, Visitation of the Sick, etc. part iv. p. 124.
2 The Theological Works of Isaac Barrow, ed. Alex. Napier, Cambridge, 1859, vol.
vii. p. 365, note : concerning the power of the Keys in An exposition of the Creed.
The editor encloses this note in square brackets.
3 William Wake, An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England,
London, Chiswell, 1686, p. 42. On Penance and Confession,
272 PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES.
to the rest of the apostles, Matth. xvi. 19. But it was not actually con-
ferr'd upon them till after his resurrection, when having breathed, he said
unto them, receive ye the Holy Ghost : whosesoever sins ye remit, they are
remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained, John
xx. 23. As if he should have said, I, the Son of man, having power upon
earth also to forgive sins, do now commit the same to you ; so that whose
sins soever are remitted or retained by you, are so by me also.1
In the time of William the Third, Freind and Parkins were
hanged for being in a conspiracy to murder the king ; at the gallows
Jeremy Collier publicly absolved them without any previous con
fession, so that " he knew not the state of their souls ". The Arch
bishops and Bishops protest at this scandal, asking
how could they, without manifest Transgression of the Churches Order,
as well as the prophane abuse of the Power Christ hath left with his
Ministers, absolve them from all their Sins ? 2
Dr. John Stearne, or Sterne, afterwards Bishop of Dromore,
when dealing with the necessity in the sick of the confession of sins
and of real penitence for them, gives this rule:
24 Reg. Poenitentibus pronuntianda est absolutio Ea exponenda et
quomodo.
24. Illis de quorum poenitentia, quin vera fuerit, non jure dubitatur
pronuntianda est absolutio, si obnixe earn petierint, eaque, ne perperam
intelligatur ut plurimum exponi debet, et proponi possit tanquam absoluta
respectu eorum delictorum, quae ecclesiae scandalum pepererunt, et
respectu aliorum omnium peccatorum tanquam authoritativa, Deique
gratia efficax futura illis, qui veram egerint poenitentiam.3
Wheatly's commentary on the Prayer Book was thought so
exactly to express the mind of the Church of England that in the
eighteenth century it was put by many bishops into the hands of
the Ordinands : in speaking of the abolition by Nectarius of the
office of Penitentiary he says :
Not but that they were at liberty, after the abolishing of this office, as
much as they were before, to use the advice of a ghostly counsellor, if
they found themselves in want of it, but then there was no peculiar Officer,
whose distinct business it should be to receive such applications : but
every one was left to choose a Confessor for himself, in whom he might
safely confide.
* * *
Christ's Presence with his Ministers, Sermon i. in The works . . . of Dr. William
Beveridge, London, sec. ed. Bettesworth and Innys, 1729, vol. i. p. 7.
ZA Declaration of the Sense of the Archbishops and Bishops now in and about
London, London, Everingham, 1696, p. 10.
3 Johannes Stearne, Tractatus de visitatione Infirmorum, Londini, Baldwin, 1700.
Regulae ad Secundam Classem spectantes, p. 48.
PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES. 273
But present ease is not the only benefit the penitent may expect from
his confessor's aid : he will be better assisted in the regulation of his life ;
and when his last conflict shall make its approach, the holy man, being
no stranger to the state of his soul, will be better prepared to guide and
conduct it through all difficulties that may oppose.1
In a Catechism of some fifty pages, French and English being
printed opposite one another, and designed to set forth the chief
differences between the Church of England and the Church of Rome,
we read on the subject of confession the following declaration as
giving the position of the Church of England :
We are not against Confessing to a Minister, in the Church of England ;
Nay, our Church presses it, both publick and private, to God chiefly, and
to a pious and able Divine, if the Conscience be burthened, and particu
larly upon a sick or death Bed, and before receiving the Sacrament.2
Fiddes treating of the article of the creed, " the forgiveness of
sins " and the power committed to the church to remit sins, says
confession is, under certain circumstances, a duty; as the priest is our
proper spiritual guide . . . whether a particular confession of their sins be
in any case, necessary, in order to qualify sinners for the sacerdotal absolu
tion ; or whether other general testimonies of their repentance be sufficient
to this end ; it seems highly requisite, if not absolutely necessary, to all
true penitents, where the sacerdotal absolution can be had, that, as it is a
means God has appointed to declare the forgiveness of sins, it ought to be
had.3
He adds those who refuse absolution in contempt are, using the
softest terms, in a very dangerous state.
The same writer, preaching to criminals found guilty of murder,
says :
A Third Condition of Repentance is Confession ; First to God, and
that not only of your Sins in general, but in as particular a Manner as you
can call them to Remembrance, that so you may, in some measure, pro
portion your Sorrow and Humiliation to the Nature and Degree of your
Guilt.
2. To Men; especially to him who has in a more peculiar Manner
the Guide and Direction of your Consciences . . . but besides there is
Charles Wheatly, A Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch. xi.
§ 5, ed. G. E. Corrie, Cambridge, 1859, pp. 527, 528.
2 Questions and Answers Concerning the two religions, viz. that of the Church of
England, and the Other, Of the Church of Rome, London, 1723, p. 37. No printer's
name. Bodleian Library, Pamphl. 374.
3 Richard Fiddes, Theologia Speculativa : or, the first part of a body of divinity,
London, Bernard Lintot, 1718, Book IV. Art. x. p. 598.
18
274 PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES.
another very weighty and important Reason, why Penitents should make
particular Confession of their Sins to their spiritual Guides, and which I
cannot give you better than in the Words of our admirable Liturgy, viz.
That by the Ministry of God's holy Word &C.1
He continues the quotation from the exhortation to Com
munion.
The celebrated philosopher, Dr. Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne,
has no doubt Pascal's exposure of Jesuit morals in his eye, when he
condemns the casuistry of the Church of Rome.
I had forgot to say a word of Confession, which you mention as an
advantage in the Church of Rome which is not to be had in ours. But it
may be had in our communion, by any who please to have it ; and, I
admit, it may be very usefully practised. But, as it is managed in the
Church of Rome, I apprehend it doth infinitely more mischief than good.
Their casuistry seemeth a disgrace, not only to Christianity, but even to the
light of nature.2
This was written as part of a letter to a friend who was tempted
to become a Roman Catholic.
Dr. Wilson, the good Bishop of Sodor and Man, put this high
standard before his clergy :
of Ad Clerum. Qualifications of a Good Confessor. — A Blameless Life.
Of an Unviolable Secresy, a Sweet Behaviour to Allure and to comfort
Sinners. Courage to Reprove, and Prudence to Apply fit Remedies to
Troubled Consciences, and to let them know that God respects Sincerity
of Heart above all things. Pag. 47.3
And again :
[The priest] would mightily abuse his Power, if he should Pronounce
one Penitent, who has been persuaded to tell his Faults, without consider
ing seriously how to leave them, and purposing sincerely to do so. And
certainly the best way to satisfye one's conscience whether we are truly
penitent, is for a while to try whether we keep up sincerely to our Resolu
tions of Forsaking every sin.4
The next authority to be quoted is Dr. Seeker, Archbishop of
Canterbury.
1 Richard Fiddes, Fifty two Practical Discourses, London, 1720. Sermon xv. to
the Criminals in York Castle, July 4, 1708, p. 182 end of Sermon.
2 The Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. C. Fraser, Oxford, 1901, vol. iv. p. 532.
Letter to Sir John James, 1741.
3 Thomas Wilson, Supplement to Maxims of Piety and Morality, § 52 in Works,
Oxford, J. H. Parker, 1860, vol. v. p. 532, No. 52.
4 ibid. p. 540, No. 78.
PRIVATE CONFESSION RECOMMENDED BY DIVINES. 275
Still in many Cases acknowledging the Errors of our Lives, and open
ing the State of our Souls to the Ministers of God's Word, for their Opinion,
their Advice, and their Prayers, may be extremely useful, sometimes nec
essary. And whenever Persons think it so, we are ready both to hear
them with the utmost Secresy, and to assist them with our best Care : to
direct them how they may be forgiven, if we think they are not ; to pro
nounce them forgiven, if we think they are.1
Dr. Johnson was consulted by a man who ought to have had no
scruples at all, for his master had given him permission to take as
much as be pleased of certain goods.
He told me that he was oppressed by scruples of conscience : I blamed
him gently for not applying, as the rules of our church direct, to his parish
priest or other discreet clergyman.
He was dismissed not so gently as he was received. " Sir (said I)
teize me no more about such airy nothings."2
In bodily or spiritual sickness Dr. George Home, the Bishop of
Norwich, advises the patient thus :
More especially " let them send for the elders of the church " whose
continual employment it is to present sinners to Christ. . . . He shall
hear the voice of Jesus saying to him by his word, by the absolution of
the church, and the testimony of his conscience through the holy Ghost —
" Son, be of good cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee ".3
And speaking of the diseases of the soul he says that
when sick, or wounded by sin, it must be recovered and restored by
godly counsel and wholesome discipline, by penance and absolution, by
the medicines of the word and sacraments, as duly and properly adminis
tered in the church, by the lawfully and regularly appointed delegates and
representatives of the physician of souls.4
Hey disliking greatly the practice of private confession has to
own that
The church of England may seem, from some things, to approach
towards Romish Confession.
After quoting from Bishop Sparrow's Rationale the three parts of
Repentance, Hey goes on :
1 Thomas Seeker, Sermons on several Subjects, ed. by Beilby Porteus and George
Stinton, London, Rivington, 1771, vol. vi. p. 357. Sermon xiv.
2 Hesther Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, second ed. London,
Cadell, 1786, p. 226.
3 George Home, Discourses on several Subjects and Occasions, second ed. Oxford,
I795> vol. iii. p. 306. " The paralytic healed."
* ibid, third ed. London, Robinson, 1799, vol. ii. p. 164, on Ephes. iv. 7 preached
before the University of Oxford on June 8, 1757.
18*
276 CONFESSOR TO THE KIN&S HOUSEHOLD.
Confession, in some sort private, is often commended by our Divines,
and even in our Liturgy : we may instance in the first Exhortation to the
Communion, and in the Visitation of the Sick.1
Next he does his best to neutralise what the Prayer Book says.
Sir George Pretyman Tomline was Bishop of Lincoln and then
Bishop of Winchester, dying in 1827. Dealing with the twenty-
fifth Article of Religion he says :
Confession of sins to God is an indispensable duty, and confession to
priests may sometimes be useful, by leading to effectual repentance ; and
therefore our church encourages its members to use confidential confession
to their priest, or to any other minister of God's holy word.2
Dr. Herbert Marsh was Lady Margaret Professor at Cambridge,
and afterwards became Bishop of LlandafYand then of Peterborough.
He distinguishes between the Roman and Anglican scheme of con
fession thus :
The case is widely different, when men voluntarily go to consult their
ministers, in order to seek relief for a troubled conscience, and relate to
him at their own discretion the offences, which cause their uneasiness. Now
the Confessions required by the Church of England are general Confessions
to Almighty God, in which the Priest joins with the congregation : and
though on certain occasions especial Confession is recommended it always
depends on the will of the person himself.3
There is the testimony of a Lutheran, travelling in England, in
favour of our practice. In 1683, a chaplain, in waiting upon a
young Prince of Sweden, expressed himself as much satisfied with
the Common Prayer Book ; and
confessed wee had retained very much of the practices of the Primitive
Church, and more particularly that wee had retain'd Confession, Absolution,
and soe many Feasts and Fasts.4
The office of Confessor continued in the King's Household
throughout our period.
The first day of November 1675 the said Mr. Stephen Crespion was
sworne Confessor to his Majesties Household.
When he died he was apparently followed by Mr. RadclifTe ; and
1 John Hey, Lectures in Divinity, Book IV. Art. xxv. § 4. Cambridge, 1798, vol. iv.
p. 218.
2 George Pretyman Tomline, Elements of Christian Theology, London, 1799, vol.
ii. p. 424. Exposition of the Thirty Nine Articles, Part III. Art. xxv.
3 Herbert Marsh, A comparative view of the Churches of England and Rome,
Cambridge, 1814, ch. ix. p. 195.
4 1683, June 13, in Miscellanea : comprising the Works and Letters of Dennis Gran-
ville, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 171.
WORD "ABSOLUTION" USED IRREGULARLY. 277
then the Rev. Mr. Samuel Bentham succeeded in this office on
Nov. 9, I/I6.1
Later on there may be traced appointments to the office of
Confessor to the King's Houshold.2 It does not seem to have
ceased until the middle of the nineteenth century. The list of
Confessors from 1606 to 1833 is given by Dr. Sheppard, the last
being appointed in that year and succeeded in 1859 by a clergyman
with a new name of office : Chaplain at the Palace of St. James ?
The word absolution does not always mean during this period
a solemn administration of a rite, either in Church or in Court. It
is used loosely, not as a word of art.
The episcopal absolution seems to be spoken of in an irregular
sort of way. The Dean of Durham, Dr. Denis Granville, wishing
to clear himself to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Sancroft, on
Easter Even, 1685, says :
As for any infirmities and imprudences in this transaction, I beg God's,
my lord's [of Durham], and particularly your Grace's absolution.4
So also Miss Burney, when at Bath, says they had a most ex
cellent sermon on the Sunday from the Bishop of Peterborough,
Dr. HinchclifTe, who after dinner " proposed a frolic," which was to
drink tea at Spring Gardens. Mrs. Thrale had invited company,
and, on returning from this "frolic," found her house full of people.
She " was in horrid confusion ; but as the Bishop gave her absolu
tion, her apologies were very good naturedly accepted in general ".5
Dr. Haweis, one of the more prominent Calvinistic clergymen
in the Church of England at the end of the eighteenth century, is
credited with an attack upon Dr. Pretyman Tomline, the Bishop
of Lincoln mentioned above, in which he remarks, not without
sarcasm, that if what he says cannot be made good, " I shall then
take shame to myself, and implore your Lordship's absolution ".6
1 The Old Cheque Book, ed. Rimbault, Camden Society, 1872. New Series III.
pp. 15, 26, 28.
2 See Cardanus Rider, Sheet Almanack for 1778, p. 76, and Royal Kalendar for
1181, p. 130, and Rider's British Merlin for 1829 under Chapel Royal when the Confessor
of the Household is Henry Fly, D.D. F.R. and A.S.
3 J. Edgar Sheppard, Memorials of St. James's Palace, Longmans, 1894, v°l- "• P-
299.
4 Miscellanea, Surtees Society, 1861, vol. xxxvii. p. 210.
5 Diary and Letters of Madame d*Arblay, 1780, June, London, Colburn, 1842,
vol. i. p. 371.
fi Church of England vindicated from Misrepresentation, London, Mawman, 1801,
p. 19.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII.
[BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 32,415.]
f. 229 b.] By vertue of an order from the reverend Mr. Tanner, Comis-
sary of the Archdeaconry for Amy King to do penance in the Parish
Church of Helmingham.
1 To be repeated by the Person doing Penance after the Minister as followeth?
NB. After the service, before the Psalms, and Sermon
I Amy King, late of the Parish of Helmingham, do here, in the pre
sence of Almighty God, and this congregation, humbly confess and acknow
ledge, that I have, most grievously, offended his divine Majesty, in defiling
my body, by committing, the heinous Sin of Fornication, with William Pells
of Otley, For which, my said foul offence, I am heartily sorry, and do
sincerely, repent thereof, and beg of God, mercy and forgiveness, for the
same. Desiring all you, here present, to take warning, at this my punish
ment, for the 3 avoiding, any the like wickedness, and to pray God, for me
and with me, that his wrath, and plagues, threatned against whoremongers,
adulterers, fornicators, and all such unclean persons, may be turned away,
from me, and this 4 parish town, wherein I now dwell, desiring also, all
good people, to forgive me, this scandal, which I have given them, and the
profession, of Christianity, And I do promise, by Gods grace, for the re
mainder of my days, to live soberly, chastly, and godly, which that I may
do, I desire you all, to joyn with me, in prayer, and 5 say the Lords Prayer.5
Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy
kingd. come ; Thy will be done in Earth 6 as it is in heaven, give
us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses, as we
forgive them that trespass against us, And lead us not into
Tempt : 7 but deliver us from evil.7 For thine is the Kingd. and
the Power, and the glory, for ever and ever, amen,
f. 229.] After this you may say to the apparitor I won't insist upon the
1 It was done the 5th of Aug. 1733.
2 To . . . followeth : underlined. [The punctuation in the confession is due to
the necessity of reciting the form slowly, "after the Minister".]
3 interlined. *ibid. 5*5and . . . Prayer: interlined.
6 corrected from heaven. 7'7"but . . . evil" added in margin.
278
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII. 279
riguour to have her stand all the time of the sermon ; You may take * of
her sheet ; 2 and let her sit in the lower end of the Church.
INSCR.
A schedule of penance enjoined the 13' day of June in the year of our
Lord 1733, by the worshipful John Tanner Clerke Master of arts in and
throughout the whole archdeaconry Official lawfully constituted to be per
formed by William Pells of Otley and Amy King of Helmingham in the
county of Suffolk and Archdeaconry aforesaid for the Crime of fornication
by them committed.
The said William Pells and Amy King shall be present in the Parish
Churches of Otley and Helmingh[am] aforesaid on some Sunday or sun-
days before the last day of August next ensuing standing penitently in the
middle Alley before the Ministers seat or the pulpit, cloathed in a white
sheet, holding a white rod or wand in their hands, having papers pinn'd
upon their breasts describing their faults or sin, And then and there in
such sort to continue during the whole time of divine service — and at the
end of the same before the congregation is dismiss'd and the blessing given
shall upon their knees make their humble confession repeating every word
after the Minister with an audible voice as followeth : —
[end off. 229]
[BODLEIAN LIBRARY, MS. OXF. ARCHD. PAPERS, OXON. c. 130. FO. 85.]
In the Archdeaconry Court of Oxford.
Bridges against Castle.
A Schedule of Penance enjoined Thomas Catlef of the parish of
Saint Ebbe in the city and Archdeaconry of Oxford by the Reverend
William Brown clerk Master of Arts surrogate of the Reverend George
Turner clerk Master of Arts Official Principal of the Reverend the Arch
deacon of Oxford lawfully constituted to be by him performed in the
parish church of Saint Ebbe aforesaid on Sunday the twenty second day of
February in the Year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and one.
The said Thomas Castle shall on the day and year aforesaid in the
parish church of Saint Ebbe aforesaid immediately after Morning Prayers
and Sermon ended before the Minister churchwardens and two other Par
ishioners of the said parish, after the Minister distinctly repeat the follow
ing words.
Good People. Whereas I contrary to good manners and
Christian Charity have unjustly reproached and defamed Elizabeth
1 sic. * Scored through in MS.
280 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII.
Bridges wife of John Bridges of the Chapelry of North Hincksey
in the county of Berks, by saying to her " You are a strumpet and
I knew you when you lay on the Botley Road," of which I am con
victed in the said Court by my own Confession and by the decree
of that Court am come hither to acknowledge my Fault, which I
heartily do, and am sorry that I have so defamed and injured the
said Elizabeth Bridges and do hereby ask forgiveness of the same.
This agrees with the Acts of Court.
Andw Walsh |
Depty Regr.J
This schedule of Penance was duly performed by the said Thomas
Castle in the parish Church of Saint Ebbe aforesaid on the day and time
above mentioned in the presence of us
[Here follow names of Minister, Churchwardens, and two parishioners.]
CHAPTER IX.
CHURCH SOCIETIES.
WHEN the storm of the Rebellion was over, Little Gidding could
hardly fail to inspire some to follow its example. And though
many of the schemes proposed in our period came to nought, yet it
is good to see the idea of a life devoted in common to recollection,
prayer, study, or charity, springing up in so many quarters, and en
couraged during our period by those who can speak with authority.
The first of these projects took shape but a short time before the
return of the King.
On September 3, 1659, thus six months before the Restoration,
good Mr. Evelyn wrote from Says-Court to the famous Robert Boyle,
explaining his intention to quit the world, and found a society " to
preserve science and cultivate themselves".
First, thirty or forty acres of land were to be purchased near
London ; the building was to be divided up so that each apartment
" should contain a small bed chamber, an outward room, a closet, and
a private garden, somewhat after the manner of the Carthusians.
There should likewise be one laboratory, with a repository for
rarities and things of nature ; aviary, dovehouse, physick garden,
kitchen garden, and a plantation of orchard fruit &c." He has
already said there was to be " a pretty chapel " and there was also
to be a chaplain.
As to diet, there was to be : " At one meal a day, of two dishes
only (unless some little extraordinary upon particular days or oc
casions, then never exceeding three) of plain and wholesome meat ;
a small refection at night ".
In the following " Orders " it may be particularly noted that " the
principal end of the institution" is " the promotion of experimental
knowledge".
ORDERS.
At six in summer prayers in the chapel. To study till half an hour
after eleven. Dinner in the refectory till one. Retire till four. Then
281
282 LIFE IN COMMUNITY.
called to conversation (if the weather invite) abroad, else in the refectory ;
this never omitted but in case of sickness. Prayers at seven. To bed at
nine.
In the winter the same with some abatements for the hours, because
the nights are tedious, and the evenings conversation more agreeable ; this
in the refectory. All play interdicted, sans bowls, chess, &c.
Every one to cultivate his own garden. One month in spring a course
in the elaboratory on vegetables, &c. In the winter a month on other ex
periments. Every man to have a key of the elaboratory, pavilion, library,
repository, &c.
Weekly fast. Communion once every fortnight, or month at least.
No stranger easily admitted to visit any of the Society, but upon certain
days weekly, and only after dinner.
Any of the Society may have his commons to his apartment, if he will
not meet in the refectory, so it be not above twice a week.
Every Thursday shall be a musick meeting at conversation hours.
Every person of the Society shall render some publick account of his
studies weekly, if thought fit, and especially shall be recommended the pro
motion of experimental knowledge, as the principal end of the institution.
There shall be a decent habit and uniform used in the college. One
month in the year may be spent in London, or any of the Universities, or
in a perambulation for the publick benefit, &c. with what other orders shall
be thought convenient &C.1
It does not appear from the after life of John Evelyn that he ever
accomplished his design of leaving the world. There may be noted
once more the great contrast to other societies of this kind : that
the aim of the college was the increase of knowledge, and that by
way of experiment, as would become, indeed, a society founded by
one of the Fellows first elected into the new formed Royal Society
in 1661.
Ten years after, another of these abortive schemes entered into
the head of Mr. Edward Chamberlayne, who, with other friends,
was prepared to begin a convent for women. His correspondent
in all likelihood was Dr. Basire.
London, 31. Jan. [1670.]
Worthy Dr.
At the request of some worthy persons I have undertaken a
designe which you and all good men will doubtlesse much favour. It is
for erecting a Colledge not far from hence for the education of young
ladies, under the government of some grave matrons, who shall resolve to
lead the rest of their dayes in a single retired religious life ; which many
1 Diary of John Evelyn, ed. Bray and Wheatley, London, Bickers, 1879, vol. iii.
p. 265.
LIFE IN COMMUNITY. 283
have a long time wisht, but none have made it their busines to bring to
effect. My request to you is for your advice herein. Our good friend Dr.
Thriscrosse hath told me that you have mentioned some such Colledge to
be in Germany among either Lutherans or Calvinists. Herein chiefly I
desire to be satisfied, at what place you have seen, or been certainly in
formed, of such a Colledge, or Protestant Monastery, and whether you
know any one here who can informe me of their Rules and Constitutions,
and whether you believe that such a thing may be practised in England ; if
so, then that you will please to promote the designe by inviting such ladyes
of your acquaintance in any parts of England whom you know well
qualifyed and fit to be of the Society, and such other well disposed persons
as may contribute towards the charges, which, I hope will not be great ;
for at first there will only need a house with good gardens, well secured
with walls, and a constant salary for a Chaplain ; and for this divers have
already promised to subscribe in a bountiful manner. Much more I could
let you know of this matter, but I shall now only beg pardon for this great
boldnesse, and assure you that I am, Sir,
Your very humble servant
Edw. Chamberlayne.1
It is clear that Mrs. Godolphin at one time had thoughts that
a religious vocation was hers ; but Evelyn observes :
that the Heroick tymes were now antiquated, and people proceeded by
gentler and more compendious methods ; and the decencyes of her sex,
and custome of the nation, and the honour of the condition, and the want
of Monasteryes and pyous Recesses obliged her to marry.2
And when at Paris she writes :
I did not imagine the tenth part of the Superstition I find in it,
yett still could approve of their Orders. Their Nunneryes seem to be
holy Institutions, if they are abused, 'tis not their fault : what is not per
verted ? 3
A scheme for a College of Maids was put forth by Clement
Baskdale (so stated in Anthony Wood's handwriting on the first
page) on Aug. 12, 1675, in which rules much resembling those of
an Oxford College for men are given. At the end of the tract,
under Postscript, the author says :
As for the Religious Orders of Virgins in the Roman Church, though
[in] some of those very great abuses have crept in ; yet I think 'twere to
be wish'd, that those who supprest them in this Nation, had confin'd them-
1 The Correspondence of John Cosin, Surtees Society, vol. Iv. 1872, part ii. p. 384,
from Mickleton MSS. xlvi. 243.
2 The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, by John Evelyn, London, Sampson Low, 1888, p.
81.
•*ibid. p. 120.
284 LIFE IN COMMUNITY.
selves within the bounds of a Reformation, by choosing rather to rectifie
and regulate, than abolish them.1
In 1682 (January 27) Mr. Evelyn was consulted by the King
and the Archbishop about " the erection of a Royal Hospital for
emerited souldiers" in which Sir Stephen Fox was much interested,
and which he was apparently about to found. This is what we are
told:
He also engag'd me to consider of what laws and orders were fit for
the government, which was to be in every respect as strict as in any
religious convent.
This again seems to have come to nothing. But the plan of
Mrs. Astell reached near to success. She, reflecting upon the evils
of her time, was led to think of a remedy for them ; and this was
her remedy.
Now as to the Proposal, it is to erect a Monastery, or if you will (to
avoid giving offence to the scrupulous and injudicious, by names which
tho' innocent in themselves, have been abus'd by superstitious Practices,)
we will call it a Religious Retirement, and such as shall have a double
aspect, being not only a Retreat from the World for those who desire that
advantage, but likewise, an Institution and previous discipline, to fit us
to do the greatest good in it.2
But there was a busybody at hand to confound such a project.
The scheme given in her [Mrs. AstelPs] proposal, seemed so reasonable,
and wrought so far upon a certain great lady, that she had designed to
give ten thousand pounds towards erecting a sort of college for the educa
tion and improvement of the female sex : and as a retreat for those ladies
who nauseating the parade of the world, might here find a happy recess
for the noise and hurry of it. But this design coming to the ears of
Bishop Burnet, he immediately went to that lady, and so powerfully remon
strated against it, telling her it would look like preparing a way for Popish
Orders, that it would be reputed a Nunnery, &c. that he utterly frustrated
that noble design.3
To Mrs. Astell the dangers of living free in the world must have
seemed very great. The infection of ill company was much to be
avoided. She quotes the saying Liberty will corrupt an Angel:*"
1 A Letter touching a Colledge of Maids, or, a Virgin-Society, Bodleian Library,
Wood 130.
2 [Mary Astell,] A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True
and Greatest Interest, Part I. third edition, London, Wilkin, 1696, p. 40.
3 George Ballard, Memoirs of several ladies of Great Britain, Oxford, 1752, p. 146
(thus ; but a printer's error for 446).
4 Astell, p. 78.
LIFE IN COMMUNITY. 285
and her mind is at one with the sentiment in the ninth chapter of the
first book of the Imitation : " Go where thou wilt thou shall not find
peace save in humble obedience to the will of a master". The
modern idea is that Liberty is the first thing to be claimed, without
which life is not worth having. We see the results of this doctrine
in practice in the world around us.
Swift in 1709 ridiculed this scheme of Mrs. Astell's by pointing
to what folly it might lead if carried out. Sir Walter Scott, at least,
thinks that it is Mrs. Astell's scheme which is laughed at in the
Tatler under the name of the Platonics, and the mention of the
name of the Rector of Bemerton, John Norris, Mrs. Astell's corres
pondent, makes the assumption very plausible.
This is Swift's account of what he calls Platonnes.
There were, some years since, a set of these ladies who were of quality,
and gave out, that virginity was to be their state of life during this mortal
condition, and therefore resolved to join their fortunes and erect a nun
nery. The place of residence was pitched upon ; and a pretty situation,
full of natural falls and risings of waters, with shady coverts &C.1
Then one Mr. Rake, with a number of his sex, succeeds in pene
trating into this protestant nunnery, with the usual results.
Sir George Wheler, a Prebendary of Durham, had been in the
East, and while he commends the Greek Monasteries, yet speaks
severely against the Western. He puts aside the Communities at
Bromley founded by Dr. John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, and at
Winchester by Dr. George Morley, Bishop of that See, as not being
convents but Colleges of Retirement for old age. Those for the
Retirement of Single Men, it would seem, he would not admit at
all. But he devotes his fourth Chapter to Monasteries for Women,
which he opens with these words :
Convents for single Women seem more convenient, if not very neces
sary for all times and Countries, and are by far less dangerous, since no
considerable detriment can be expected from them, if due regard be had
in composing the Rules of their Institution, by such like precautions as
these.2
His rules would allow these nuns to marry, to remain or leave
the Society, but while they remain to be enclosed, their reputation
1Jon. Swift, Tatler, No. 32, Thursday, June 20, 1709: in Works, ed. W. Scott,
Edinburgh, 1814, vol. ix. p. 206.
2 [George Wheler,] The Protestant Monastery : or, Christian Oeconomicks. Contain
ing Directions for the Religious Conduct of a Family, 1698, p. 14.
286 LIFE IN COMMUNITY.
before admission to be of a spotless modesty, and the government
of the Society to be " committed to none, but such, whose Virtue,
Conduct, Age and Experience, should render them worthy of that
Honour, and are rather to be chosen out of the Widows ". His
book otherwise is one of suggestions for the regulating of a Christian
family rather than for the encouragement of a religious life.
It appears that the following scheme of Edward Stephens was
actually brought into existence, as the others were not. In the
Bodleian Library there are two copies of a Proposal in an anony
mous tract of four pages, without date, place, or printer. On the
third page there is a sort of advertisement of Socrates Christianus,
allowing the Proposal to be by the author of Socrates Christianus,
which is usually attributed to Edward Stephens. If this be so, the
Proposal must have appeared after 1700, the date of Socrates
Christianus. The following is the introduction to the scheme.
THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY: OR, A PROPOSAL OF A COMPLEAT
WORK OF CHARITY.
for tJie Accommodation of some Devout Women, with such mean but
convenient Habitation, Work, Wages, and Relief, that they may have Time
and Strength for the Worship of God, both in Publick and Private, and Free
dom of Mind for Meditation and Religious Exercises, while their Hands are
Imploy'dfor Maintenance of the Body; and that while they enjoy the Bene
fit of such Accommodations for their own Souls, their Benefactors, and the
Church and Nation, may be benefitted by their Constant Prayers.1
These women were to be employed upon Works of Charity ;
in visiting the sick and needy ; carrying alms where there may be
occasion ; and spreading the Kingdom of Christ. Also in the edu
cation of young women in piety and virtue.
He has a marginal note considering how single men might live
together in a Religious Society, but defers putting forth a scheme
till he sees the success of the earlier for women. What is to be
noticed is the prominent appearance in the scheme of practical
works of benevolence, as a great aim of the institution.
In another separate tract he is able to announce the definite for
mation of the Society ; and at the end of the extract may be ob
served a suggestion the carrying out of which was a great purpose
in Stephens' life, a daily celebration of the Eucharist.
1 Bodleian Library, 4° Rawl. 564. No. 27. and another copy : Th. 4° R. 66.
LIFE IN COMMUNITY. 287
He hath also begun to put his Proposal into Practice, having, for that
purpose procured a Friend to take a Lease of a convenient House of near
4o/. per Annum ; his Design therein being to give an Experiment and Ex
ample of the great Use and Benefit thereof, and not merely the Accommo
dation of one Twenty Women. This he hath begun in hope and confi
dence that there is yet so much real Piety and Charity left in this City, and
especially in this Sex, as not to suffer such a Proposal to come to nothing
for want of Supplies, and become a Publick Testimony of the Barrenness
and Insincerity of the Religion professed amongst us, as another Good
Work, begun by him for the Restitution of the most Solemn Christian Wor
ship to its Integrity and just Frequency of a Daily Celebration}*
This daily celebration had been begun in private in 1692 and
carried on at St. Giles1 Cripplegate in 1694; and later on at St.
Alphage.2 It must have been going on, not at St. Giles, but else
where, in 1 706, for Dr. Thomas Smith writes to Hearne on Feb. 1 9 :
Here is indeed now in towne Mr. Edward Stephens, . . . who in his little
congregation of daily Communicants, consisting of five or six women,
makes use of the first Liturgy of King Edward VI, with some few additions
and patches of his owne.3
He had lost one of his little Society, evidently much to his
chagrin, for he published the following quarto tract :
A true account of the unaccountable Dealings of some Roman Catholick
Missionars of this Nation, for Seducing Proselytes from the Simplicity of
the Gospel, to the Roman Mystery of Iniquity. With a particular Relation
of a Gentlewoman lately so seduced out of a true Catholick Family.
That is, his own. The pamphlet was printed and sold in 1703
by J. Downing.
The only rules of Edward Stephens' little Society that have
come down to us are these :
1. To meet daily at five in the Morning at a daily Communion.
2. To endeavour, as near as we could, in all things to follow the example
of the ancient Christians ; and,
3. To avoid giving offence to any, but especially to the Church of
England^
1 Bodleian Library, Th. 4° R. 66, p. 8 of a Letter to a Lady, concerning . . . Celi-
bacie &>c., the colophon has: Printed for the Religious Society of Single Women.
2 In a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, concerning the Use of some Portions
of other Parts of our Liturgy in the Communion Service upon just occasion, in a Collec
tion of Tracts and Papers, London, printed for the Author [Edw. Stephens] 1702.
3Thomas Hearne, Remarks and Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1885, vol.
i. p. 188. Stephens' Liturgy of the Ancients was printed in 4° in 1696 and reprinted by
Peter Hall in the second volume of his Fragmenta Liturgica, Bath, Binns and Good
win, 1848.
4 Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 21 Feb. 1694-5. Bodleian Library, 4°
Rawl. 564. No. 26. See also The Second Part of the Apology of Socrates Christianas, p. 5.
288 LIFE IN COMMUNITY.
Atterbury laments the entire destruction of monastic institutions :
'Twas the great Blemish of our Reformation, that, when Religious
Houses were suppressed, some Part, at least, of their Revenues was not
restored to its Original Use.1
With this last wish we may compare a remark in one of his
essays by Dr. Horne, afterwards Bishop of Norwich :
It is well known what strange work there has been in the world, under
the name and pretence of Reformation ; how often it has turned out to be,
in reality, Deformation ; or, at best, a tinkering sort of business, where,
while one hole has been mended, two have been made.2
William Law, with his disposition to asceticism, naturally com
mends the religious life :
If therefore persons, of either sex, mov'd with the life of Miranda, and
desirous of perfection, should unite themselves into little societies, professing
voluntary poverty, virginity, retirement and devotion, living upon bare neces
saries, that some might be reliev'd by their charities, and all be blessed with
their prayers, and benefited by their example : Or if for want of this, they
should practice the same manner of life, in as high a degree as they could
by themselves ; such persons would be so far from being chargeable
with any superstition or blind devotion, that they might be justly said to
restore that piety, which was the boast and glory of the Church, when its
greatest saints were alive.3
William Law formed a very small society, hardly more than two
women, who lived under his guidance in a house at Kings ClirTe,
spending in good works that part of their income not needed for a
most simple and plain way of living. On Law's death in 1761 this
strict way of living was given up.4
Sir William Cunninghame, Baronet, of Caprington and Lam-
brughton, who died in 1740, writing from his house in the Lawn
Market, Edinburgh, on March 17, 1737 to Dr. Thomas Sharp, the
Archdeacon of Northumberland, encloses an elaborate scheme for
erecting a Society of Ladies of Quality, and Gentlewomen of Great
Britain in order to a pious and comfortable Retirement. It extends
over five octavo pages and it is too long to be reproduced here ; but
a portion of the covering letter may be given.
1 Francis Atterbury, Maxims, London, 1723, p. 13.
2 Olla Podrida, No. 23, Saturday, August 18, 1787. Oxford, Rann, 1788, p. 133.
3 William Law, A serious call to a devout and holy Life, ch. ix. London, Innys and
Richardson, 1753, p. 135.
4 See D.N.B. under William Law.
LIFE IN COMMUNITY. 289
Diverse speculations have been had by such as wish heartily well to the
good ladies on this occasion ; but after mature deliberation, none has appeared
more agreeable than to propose a Nunnery of Protestant religious and vir
tuous persons^ well born, of the female sex, conforming themselves to the worship
of the Church of England, as by law established : a scheme of this society
is, with all humble deference, inclosed here, for your perusal at hours of
greatest leisure, and submitted to your opinion : and if either this, or any
such model, happen to take, it must of course be subject to such regulations
as shall be concerted by the Bishop of the Diocese where such nunnery
shall be founded, with advice and consent of the Dean and Chapter of such
diocese.1
He then suggests the diocese of Durham, and the site Sedge-
field, for the nunnery. The importance given to the consent of
the Dean and Chapter to the action of the Bishop may be noted,
as indicating a knowledge of their function as council to the
Bishop. He adds that there are to be no vows, but each nun is to
be at liberty to quit the nunnery, timely notice being given to the
prioress and bishop.
The Archdeacon returns a reply, unfavourable on almost all the
points laid before him.
The great philosopher, Dr. George Berkeley, in attempting to
dissuade from popery, writes thus of the religious life :
That the contemplative and ascetic life may be greatly promoted by
living in community and by rules, I freely admit. . . .
I should like a convent without a vow, or perpetual obligation. Doubt
less a college or monastery (not a resource for younger brothers, not a nursery
for ignorance, laziness, and superstition) receiving only grown persons of ap
proved piety, learning, and a contemplative turn, would be a great means
of improving the Divine Philosophy, and brightening up the face of religion
in our Church. But I should still expect more success from a number of
gentlemen, living independently at Oxford, who made divine things their
study, and proposed to wean themselves from what is called the world.2
In John Kirkby's curious romance he pictures an Utopian
Church of England, where they use a liturgy like that in the First
Book of King Edward VI. At baptism it is said that
the other sex were intrusted, in a separate Apartment, to the Care of a
sufficient Number of pious Women, called Deaconesses, who, out of Love
1 The Life of John Sharp, ed. by Thomas Newcome, London, Rivington, 1825,
vol. ii. App. iii. p. 282.
*The Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. C. Fraser, Oxford, 1901, vol. iv. p. 529.
Letter to Sir John James,; 1741.
19
290 LIFE IN COMMUNITY.
to a religious Life, had sequestred themselves from the World for that
Purpose.1
Kirkby was a Nonjuror ; tutor to the Gibbon family at Putney ;
but I do not know if he were a dissenting or conforming Nonjuror.
Samuel Richardson makes Sir Charles Grandison speak warmly
in favour of religious societies living in retirement ; and he gives an
outline of his scheme which is too long to be reproduced here com
plete. The hero begins :
We want to see established in every county Protestant Nunneries^ in
which single women, of small or no fortunes, might live with all manner
of freedom, under such regulations as it would be a disgrace for a modest
or good woman not to comply with, were she absolutely on her own hands ;
and to be allowed to quit it whenever they pleased.2
What we may call his quire sisters were to be women of good
birth ; and the lay sisters hopeful children of the industrious poor.
They were to board young women of small fortune, married women
whose husbands were out of England for a time, and widows.
Some profitable employments, it may be presumed in needlework,
were to be found them. A truly worthy divine to be director of
the Society at the appointment of the bishop of the diocese.
Later on his hero writes thus :
Permit me to say, that though a Protestant, I am not an enemy to
such foundations in general. I could wish, under proper regulations, that
we had nunneries among us. I would not, indeed, have the obligation
upon nuns be perpetual : let them have liberty, at the end of every two or
three years, to renew their vows, or otherwise, by the consent of friends.3
Dr. Johnson is divided between admiration for piety and fear
of oppression.
I never read of a hermit but in imagination I kiss his feet ; never of a
monastery, but I could fall on my knees, and kiss the pavement. But I
think putting young people there, who know nothing of life, nothing of
retirement, is dangerous and wicked. ... I have thought of retiring, and
have talked of it to a friend ; but I find my vocation is rather to active life.
Boswell then said some young monks might be allowed, to show
that it is not age alone that can retire to pious solitude. But John
son would not allow this.4
1 [John Kirkby,] The Capacity and Extent of the Human Understanding exemplified
in the Extraordinary Case of Automathes, London, Manby and Cox, 1745, p. 14.
a Samuel Richardson, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Bart. vol. iv. Letter
xxii. Chapman and Hall, 1902, vol. iv. p. 194.
3 ibid. vol. v. Letter li. p. 335.
4 James Boswell, The Journal of a tour to the Hebrides, 19 August.
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. 291
Earlier in life he had written in a judicial strain attempting to
give both sides of the question.
He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a
monastery. But, perhaps, every one is not able to stem the temptations
of publick life ; and if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat. Some
have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil.
Many are weary of their conflicts with adversity, and are willing to eject
those passions which have long busied them in vain. And many are dis
missed by age and diseases from the more laborious duties of society. In
monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered, the weary
may repose, and the penitent may meditate.1
Goldsmith thought that Johnson himself would have made a
decent monk.2 In one way he was qualified to become a monk, if
his opinion hold good that convents are idle places, for he was him
self the most indolent of men. Mrs. Thrale reports :
And when we talked of convents, and the hardships suffered in them —
" Remember always (said he) that a convent is an idle place, and where
there is nothing to be done something must be endured" 3
GUILDS.
Not so very long after our period had begun, societies were
formed which we should nowadays call Guilds. They were purely
spiritual societies ; their aim being to deepen the love of God in the
hearts of their members, and next to practice charity towards their
neighbours. They would be helped in these pious endeavours by
the encouragement which men feel when they are linked together
in a band with a common object. Chamberlayne thus describes
them, in his annual publication, as late as 1755 :
The Religious Societies are so called, because the particular end and
design of them is to improve themselves and other in the Knowledge of
our most Holy Religion, and to animate one another in the serious practice
of it.
They were begun in London, about the year 1678 by a few serious young
Men of the Communion of the Church of England, who, by the Advice and
Direction of their Spiritual Guides, agreed to meet together frequently for
Religious Conference, and by Prayer and Psalmody to edifie one another.
The experience they hereby gained of the blessedness of Religion, and
1 Samuel Johnson, Rasselas Prince of Abyssinia, ch. xlvii. Cf. a passage in the
Idler, No. 38.
2 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, London, J.
Walker, 1785, p. 194.
3 Hesther Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnsqn, s§c, ed. London,
Cadell, 1786, p. 92.
19*
292 RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.
value of Souls, soon animated their endeavours to gain others to join with
them ; whereby they grew and increased, and new Societies were formed
by the pattern of the Old : So that there are now above forty distinct
Bodies of them within the compass of the Bills of Mortality, besides divers
others in distant parts of the Nation.
Those that compose these Societies, are all Members of the Church of
England, and in all matters of Doubt and Difficulty, oblige themselves to
consult the Established Ministry. They receive the Holy Sacrament at
least once a Month, and take all convenient opportunities of attending the
Service of God in Public ; have set up Public Prayers in many Churches
of the City, procured the Administration of the Sacrament every Holy-Day,
and maintain Lectures upon the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
almost every Lords Day Evening, in some one or more Churches.
They industriously apply themselves to the relieving poor Families
and Orphans, setting Prisoners at Liberty, sollicking Charities for the
pious Education of poor Children, Visiting and Comforting those that
are Sick and in Prison, and Reclaiming the Vicious and Dissolute ; in
promoting Christian Conference, Decency in God's Worship, Family
Religion, and the Catechizing of young and ignorant People. They have
been instrumental in bringing several Quakers and Enthusiastical Persons
to Baptism, and a sober Mind, Reconciling several Dissenters to the Com
munion of the Church of England, and preserving many unsteady and
wavering Persons from Popery}*
The statement of Chamberlayne's gives a good general view of
the Societies ; but it may be well to consider the matter more in
detail : and to take first the words of a Bishop of Bath and Wells,
a contemporary witness.
The occasion was this : There was a certain number of Young Men,
who were desirous to make such a Society, and to be concluded by these
Orders. They applied to a Minister in London to take upon him the In
spection and Care of them. I was concern'd for that Minister, and there
upon laid the whole case before that Prelate. He was clearly of opin
ion that the Young Men were not to be discouraged, and that it was best
to take care of them, and secure that zeal which they expressed, in the
right Channel; he was well contented to leave them to the care and
management of a Minister of the Church of England. Upon which en
couragement they were admitted.2
The account of the rise of these religious societies, given by Dr.
Josiah Woodward, is confirmed in these terms by Dr. Horneck,
who may be called the founder of the societies.
1 John Chamberlayne, Magnae Britanniae Notitia, London, 22nd edition, 1708, p.
276, Part I. book in. ch. ix. The chapter appears also in the 38th edition, 1755,
Part I. book in. ch. ix. p. 198.
2 Richard [Kidder], The life of the Reverend Anthony Horneck, London, Aylmer,
1698, p.*i6.
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES. 293
In particular, the late Reverend Dr. Horneck, (who had a very perfect
knowledge of them, [the religious Societies] and indeed, was an eminent
Friend, or rather, Father to them, from their first Rise, to the Day of his
Death) in a Discourse I had with him a little before his Decease, was
pleased to give his publick Testimony to it, That it was a very faithful and
modest Account of the whole Matter^
It will be safe therefore to take Woodward as our chief guide.
The Rules which Dr. Horneck framed for them will be found in
the Appendix to this chapter, with those of St. Giles' Cripplegate.
We have also the Orders printed in 1724.2 All three have a strong
resemblance.
With the accession of King James the Second there seemed
some danger that the prosperity of these Societies might be
threatened ; some members did indeed turn their backs, but the re
mainder rather felt the more determined to go on as they had begun
and even to widen their activities. Still the societies felt bound to
walk warily in those dangerous days, and to conceal themselves if
necessary ; so that Woodward informs us :
In this Juncture, upon Advice, they chang'd the Name of Society^ for
that of Club ; and instead of meeting at a Friend's House, who might be
endanger'd by it, they adjourn'd to some Publick- House or other where
they could have a Room to themselves ; and under the Pretext of spending
a Shilling or two, they confer'd seriously together in the same Religious
manner as formerly ; by which honest Artifice they carried on their good
Design without interruption, even to the end of that unhappy Reign. 3
We can imagine in the twentieth century the outcry which
would have been raised by the fanatics, if a Club with a philanthropic
or virtuous purpose had held its meetings in a public house. The
modern Manichees would hold that this was in itself to encourage
vice.
Amongst the good works of the Societies it said that
they set up (at their own Expence) publick Prayers every Evening, at
Eight of the Clock, at St. Clement Danes, which never wanted a full and
affectionate Congregation. And not long after, they set up an Evening
Monthly Lecture in the same Church, to confirm Communicants in their
holy Purposes and Vows, which they made at the Lord's Tablet
It is interesting to note that these two experiments continued
in existence as late as 1714, and we are told the name of one of the
1 Josiah Woodward, An account of the Rise and Progress of the Religious Societies
in the City of London, third ed. London, Sympson, 1701, p. 3.
2 See below, next page.
3 Josiah Woodward, An account of the Rise, etc. p. 28. l ibid. p. 27.
294 RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.
founders who encountered much opposition. This is James
Paterson's account, speaking of St. Clement Danes :
Morning Prayers are every Day at eleven ; and Evening at three, and
again at eight in Week-days and seven on Sundays ; which last are main
tained by the Contributions of some well disposed Parishioners ; but first
begun by the good Endeavours of Mr. Savigar Upholster in Witch-street,
tho' with much Opposition carried on by him, and soon after that he died,
about twenty years ago.
* * *
A Monthly Lecture upon the first Sunday, at five a Clock in the
Evening ; maintained by a Society of the Parish, for the Use of the Poor.1
Only the daily prayers are mentioned in I68?.2
One circumstance which Woodward reports in his first chapter
is the spontaneous contemporary growth of similar societies.
And on this occasion it comes to be known, that in some places the
very Scope and Design of these Societies have been begun and continued by
several pious Persons, within these three or four years past, who knew noth
ing of these London- Societies, nor had so much as heard any Report of them.3
Dorrington in 1695 recommends his book on the Lord's Supper
" to the Societies of Religious Young Men in and about this City " : 4
and in the same way, Hickes, the Dissenting Nonjuror, thought
Devotions in the Ancient Way of Offices •, which was, it would seem,
first published in 1700, would be useful " to those Religious Societies
of which the Reverend Mr. Woodward hath given us an Account ".5
In 1724 there were printed in London Orders belonging to a
Religious- Society* They are very like the orders of the Society
at St. Giles' Cripplegate which are given in the appendix to this
chapter. With them are also printed the devotions used at the
meetings of the Society. Members had to promise to be faithful
and bear true allegiance to King George.
In 1724, one of the Societies in the country, at Romney, pub
lished a hymn book of its own.7 Some twelve or more of the
1 James Paterson, Pietas Londinensis, London, Downing and Taylor, 1714, p. 68.
2 Rules for our more devout Behaviour in the time of Divine Service, London,
Keble, 1687, p. 78.
s Woodward, p. 4.
4 Theophilus Dorrington, A Familiar Guide to the Right and Profitable Receiving
of the Lord's Supper, London, Aylmer, 1695, Advertisement, Sheet A.5.
5 Devotions in the Ancient Way of Offices, ed. by George Hickes, London, 1700.
To the Reader, Signature a 4.
6 Shelf mark in the Bodleian Library : 141. k. 515.
7 The Christian Sacrifice of Praises, Consisting of select Psalms and Hymns, with
Doxologies and proper Tunes for the Use of the Religious Society of Romney. Collected
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.
295
hymns would seem to be taken from John Austin's Devotions,
which may serve to show that averse as the Societies might be to
Popery, yet they would borrow hymns, and also other devotions
from popish books like Austin's.1
There is in the Bodleian Library a manuscript book (MS. Rawl.
D. 1312) with this title on its first leaf:
The Names, Places of Abode, Employments and Occupacions of the
several Societys in and about the Cities of London and Westminster Be
longing to the Church of England, 1694.
Some sixteen Societies are enumerated, meeting at different
signs in London and Westminster. Only one meets in the vestry
of a parish church, and that is at St. Alban's Wood Street. Three
meet at Mr. Watts' house, the sign of the Five Bells in Duke Street
near Lincoln's Inn Fields. They have different days in the week
for assembling; six on Sunday night, two on Monday, three on
Tuesday, one on Wednesday, and three on Thursday.
Their occupations point to the lower-middle and working classes.
One Society, that meeting on Thursday, " at Mr. Tho : Castles in
Cannon-Street near Ab-Church lane " contains members who from
their occupation may lay claim to education : Tho : Behn, Attorney ;
Geo. Cook, Clerk to his Father, John Cook Esq. ; Isaac Pyke, Clerk
to Sir Edward Clerk, Knight and Alderman.
The other occupations are, for the most part, such as these :
Broker,
Pattindrawer,
Glazier,
Tailor,
Barber,
Silversmith,
Inkhorn-maker,
Fishmonger,
Steward to Lord
Salisbury,
Scrivener,
Stocking-maker,
Weaver,
Bricklayer,
Butcher,
Ironmonger,
Bookbinder,
Translator,
Pastry Cook,
Haberdasher of Hats,
Pewterer,
Coachmaker,
Coachharness-maker,
Watchmaker,
Upholsterer,
Mercer,
Carrier,
Laceman,
Carver,
Case- maker,
Fringe-maker,
Felt-maker,
Locksmith,
Soapboiler,
Jeweller,
Firkinman,
Wheelwright,
Painter,
Engraver,
Salesman,
Carrier,
Silkman,
by the Author of the Christian's Daily Manual.
Wyat, 1724, Shelf mark BM. 3434. cc. 6.
1 See below, ch. xi. p. 341.
London, W. Pearson and John
296 RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.
Tinman, Apothecary, Canechair-maker,
Carpenter, Vintner, Embroiderer,
Schoolmaster, Caneman, Wire-drawer,
Cook, Chandler, Stationer,
Peruke-maker, Gunsmith, Vellumbinder,
Joiner, Founder, Stonecutter,
Meal-bolter, Turner, Woollen draper,
Shoemaker, Sword-cutler, Tobacconist,
Grocer, Butterman, Hosier.
The names are arranged under three headings : Masters, Journey
men, and Apprentices.
Some twenty-four years later, in 1718 the occupations of the
members of the Religious Society of St. Giles' Cripplegate were
much the same :
Joiner, Clockmaker, Ironmonger,
Perfumer, Druggist, Plumber,
Leather dresser, Distiller, Glover,
Tailor, Silkman, Jeweller,
Peruke-maker, Button seller, Cook,
Barber, Needle-maker, Schoolmaster,
Cooper, Turner, Plaisterer.1
Shoemaker.
The occupations show how strong the influence of the Church
was with the less prosperous classes. The Church of England
does not appear at the end of the seventeenth century to have
been only the church of the rich. The list is some answer to the
accusation that the Anglican system can only attract the edu
cated and well-to-do.
Later on, these Societies were also encouraged by Robert
Nelson.
For if a few Persons, on no Account considerable, and whose Names
are hardly known, being of the Church of England, by their frequently
meeting together to pray, sing Psalms, and read the Holy Scriptures, and
to edify one another by their Religious Conferences, have, thro' their
united Endeavours, and the Grace of God, been enabled to do so much as
they have done ; and to propagate and form themselves into such Societies,
as those that are particularly called the Religious Societies have been able to
do : If they have been so instrumental in promoting the daily Service
among Churches, with the regular Administration of the Holy Sacrament
of the Body and Blood of Christ every Lord's Day, and in some Churches
1 See Transactions of the St. PauVs Ecclesiological Society, 1906, vol. vi. p. 34.
THE EARL Y ME THODIS TS. 297
also every Holy- Day in the Year ; as well as other excellent Designs con
formable to the Practice of the Primitive Days, and to the Establish'd
Constitution of this best reformed Church : And if they, but in their
private Capacity, have been so serviceable to the Interest of Religion, and
to the Honour of the Church, whereof they are Members . . . How much
more easy would it be 'for Persons of Quality and Character ... to do
abundantly more for Reviving the Piety and Charity of the Primitive
Times ? l
Nelson's sentences extend over three pages. Let us add a
portion of another. He speaks with approval of
the Setting up several Societies and Funds for the more frequent and
devout Attendance on the Divine Service ; for the religious Observation
of the Fasts and Festivals by Authority appointed ; for the more exact
Conformity to the Rules of the Catholick Church, and of the Church of
England in particular ; for suppressing Vice and Immorality ; for pro
moting true Knowledge and Piety, and for proselyting to the established
Doctrine and Constitution such as have erred and gone astray from it, for
want of due Information and Instruction.2
The occupations of members of the Religious Society of St. Giles'
Cripplegate in 1718 have just been given. It is said that its sole
design was " to promote real holiness of heart and life ". We have
the Rules, the observance of which would indicate an endeavour
to lead a very pious and strict life. In the Rules of Dr. Hor-
neck's Religious Society it is enjoined to each member to pray
seven times each day, if possible.3 At St. Giles', they were all
bound to be members of the Church of England, and also to sub
scribe a form declaring King George to have a just right to the
crown. In 1717 Hearne tells us that there were to be no nonjurors
in the Religious Societies.4 The gaps in the signatures in the
original document of 1718 look as if there had been some purging
of the Society in consequence of this resolution.
There is another Society which deserves particular notice from
the developement which it underwent in later times, and of which
the fears expressed that such Societies might degenerate into Sects
were justified. It was formed in the University of Oxford.
In the latter end of the year 1729, three or four serious young Gentlemen
agreed to pass certain Evenings in every Week together, in order to read
1 Robert Nelson, An Address to Persons of Quality and Estate, London, R. Smith,
1715, p. 136.
"ibid. p. 139. 3 gee below, Appendix to this chapter, Rule No. xviii. p. 309.
4 Thomas Hearne, Collections, Oxford Historical Society, 1902, vol. vi. p. 63.
298 THE EARL Y ME THODISTS.
and observe upon the Classicks, and on Sunday upon some Book of
Devotion.1
Then it came to pass that the gaol was to be looked after ;
prisoners under sentence of condemnation and debtors were visited,
with the approval of the clergymen and bishop, and other philan
thropic work was taken in hand. They also did their best to keep
the following rules :
The first is, That of Visiting and Relieving the Prisoners and the Sick,
and giving away Bibles, Common-Prayer Books, and the Whole Duty of
Man. . . .
And, 2dly, in order to corroborate and strengthen these good Dis
positions in themselves, they find great Comfort and Use, in taking the Op
portunities which the Place gives them, as I intimated before, of a Weekly
Communion.
And, 3dly, They observe strictly the Fasts of the Church : And this
has given Occasion to such as do not approve of them, abusively to call
them Supererogation- Men?
So far so good ; and the inevitable stimulus of misrepresentation
and abuse was soon forthcoming. Attention was, it would seem, first
called to this little Society, in no very friendly way, by a writer in Fog s
Journal of Dec. 9, 1732. He gave to them the name of Methodists.
Unluckily I cannot meet with a copy of Fog's Weekly Journal of this
date ; so that I am compelled to fall back upon the extracts given by
the writer of the tract with the title Oxford Methodists quoted above.
The writer in Fogs Journal is said to compare this little Society to
the Pietists in Saxony and Switzerland, and the Essenes among the
Jews. " They avoid as much as is possible every Object that may
affect them with any pleasant and grateful Sensation." 3 Further :
" All social Entertainments and Diversions are disapprov'd of".4 And
" they not only exclude what is convenient ;, but what is absolutely
necessary for the Support of Life ".5 And on the same page he adds :
They neglect and voluntarily afflict their Bodies, and practise several
rigorous and superstitious Customs, which God never required of them.
All Wednesdays and Fridays are strictly to be kept as Fasts, and Blood let
once a Fortnight to keep down the Carnal Man.
* # *
And at Dinner, they sigh for the Time they are obliged to spend in
Eating : Every Morning to rise at Four o'Clock, is suppos'd a Duty ; and to
employ two Hours a Day in singing of Psalms and Hymns, ... is judg'd as
an indispensable Duty requisite to the Being of a Christian. In short, they
1 The Oxford Methodists, London, Roberts, 1733, p. 3.
* ibid. p. 8. 8 ibid. p. 20. 4 ibid. p. 22. 5 ibid. p. 23.
TRURO RELIGIOUS SOCIETY. 299
practise everything contrary to the Judgment of other Persons, and allow
none to have any, but those of their own Sect, which ... is farthest from it.1
Wesley tells us that it was in April 1732 that Clayton, after
wards the Chaplain of the Old Church, now the Cathedral, at Man
chester joined them. He it was who suggested a careful keeping of
the fast days of the Ancient Church.2 To be sure, a second weekly
fast was added to that of the Friday which the Church of England
requires, namely, the fast on the Wednesday ; but as this was not
set forth as a duty for all Churchmen, but only a voluntary fast
for a Society, there appears to be no great harm done. And it was
done elsewhere in the Church of England.3 Clayton himself did not
follow Wesley into schism, but remained steadfast to the Church of
England, and served the Church at Manchester to the end. In
politics he adhered to the Chevalier ; but in some way his conscience
enabled him to take the oaths to King George while publicly praying,
in the streets, for Charles Edward.4 It is hard to understand of
what stuff such conscience could be made.
But the friendship between the Wesleys and Clayton was at an
end in 1756, when Tyerman says :
Charles Wesley attended the Collegiate church every day for a whole
week, and every day stood close to Clayton and yet the latter would not even
look at him.5
Not altogether unlike the Religious Societies founded at the
end of the seventeenth century, and perhaps indebted to them for a
certain number of ideas, was a society set up at Truro in 1754 by
the Rev. Samuel Walker. He explained the end of the Society to
the candidates for admission in these words :
The design is threefold — to glorify God — to quicken and confirm
ourselves in faith and holiness — and to render us more useful among our
neighbours.6
There were two sections in the Society : that composed of single
men, from which all women were excluded ; and that of married
men and their wives, and single women, from which all single men
1 The Oxford Methodists, London, Roberts, 1733, p. 24.
2F. R. Raines and F. Renaud, The fellows of the Collegiate Church of Manchester,
Chetham Society, 1891, part ii. p. 250.
3 See ch. vii. p. 214. 4 See also ch. vi. p. 180.
5 L. Tyerman, The Oxford Methodists, Hodder and Stoughton, 1873, p. 56.
6 Edwin Sidney, The Life, Ministry, and Selections from the Remains of the Rev.
Samuel Walker, London, Baldwin and Cradock, 1835, p. 53.
300 TRURO RELIGIOUS SOCIETY.
were excluded. Into Dr. Horneck's Societies only men were ad
mitted. They of Truro met once a week in the evening, and went
home at nine o'clock. The director alone had the power of expel
ling members, and Mr. Walker kept in his own hands the control
of the Societies and (( prevented all improper trespass on his pro
vince " ; 1 " No one is to be talking there but myself" he said.2
Mr. Walker reserved to himself the performance of the devo
tional exercises. These, it would seem, have borrowed something
from the prayers contained in Woodward, spoken of above : the six
appropriate sentences of Scripture are from Woodward ; the three
collects are not found in Woodward, but the confession, the Lord's
prayer, and that beginning as the Collect for Ash Wednesday does,
may be suggested by Woodward. The " psalm," It is very meet
right, etc. and the Grace of our Lord at the end are in Woodward.3
There were no stewards, as in the London Societies, that were
permitted to lead the prayers of their fellows. On the contrary,
Mr. Walker writes :
Laymen officiating in the presence of their authorized minister, and
endeavouring to rival or eclipse him in prayer ; women forgetting the
modesty of their sex, and the propriety of their situation, in the enthusiastic
utterance of feelings real or imaginary ; youths put forward because of a
gift, to the destruction of all humility ; ignorant and illiterate persons per
mitted to give vent to unintelligible rhapsodies, exhibit violations of
decency and order.4
A high sacerdotal tone is far more apparent in the rules of Truro
than in the rules of London.
In looking over the Truro rules it may be noticed that there is
no insistence on the monthly communion, as there is in Dr. Hor
neck's, Dr. Woodward's, and at St. Giles' Cripplegate. The fourth
rule is borrowed in the opening sentence from Dr. Woodward's
second rule : Mr. Walker's fourth rule ends with " That none be
admitted members, but such as are inhabitants here and communi
cants, and that no person at any time be introduced, but at the re
quest of the director," 5 that is, says the note, Mr. Walker. This
as far as I can see is the only mention in all the rules of the Eucha
rist, the great bond of a Society, and the essential duty of every
Christian.
Nor is there that recommendation of frequent attendance at the
1 Edwin Sidney, The Life, Ministry, and Selections from the Remains of the Rev.
Samuel Walker, London, Baldwin and Cradock, 1835, p. 59.
*ibid. p. 63. »ibid. p. 60. 4ibid.p.6i. 5ibid. p. 57.
SOCIETIES FOR REFORMING MANNERS. 301
Church Service that we find in the London rules. Altogether the
Truro rules are on a lower plane as the rules of a Church Society
than those of London, though more strongly sacerdotal.
The Society which was founded in 1800 by William Stevens
under the name of " Nobody's Friends " had in view no particular
end for the benefit of the Church, beyond bringing together so as
to know one another, men of sound " principles of Religion and
Polity 'V With this view they dined together three times a year.
SOCIETIES FOR THE REFORMATION OF MANNERS.
It may be well to mention here another and different kind
of Society, Societies for the Reformation of Manners. Edward
Stephens, whose head was always full of whims and fancies, tells
us that in 1691 he began to think of another kind of society, altoge
ther different from those established by Dr. Horneck. It may be
doubted if Dr. Horneck would have allied himself with Stephens'
new plans had the doctor lived. Woodward in his fourth chapter
tells us something of their beginnings. He says : " Four or five
gentlemen of the Church of England" met together and determined
to put into execution the laws against Vice and Impieties.
These had had a legal education, and so in some way we are
directed towards Edward Stephens, who had left the bar to take
orders in the Church of England, and it may possibly be that
Stephens was one of these four or five. He was a man of but
small judgement, and little that was sane and sober could be looked
for at his hands. Stephens' Society was a new Society ; and Wood
ward also in the same chapter tells us what should, it seems, be very
particularly noticed : that the Religious Societies must be carefully
distinguished from the Societies for the Reformation of Manners.
In this number of the Societies for Reformation here given, I do not in
clude any of the Forty Religious Societies before mentioned. For tho' they
all agree in the Promotion of Virtue, and Opposition to Vice, yet their
first and more direct Design of Association, seems to be distinguished
thus : In that the Societies for Reformation bent their utmost Endeavours
from the first to suppress publick Vice ; whilst the Religious Societies endea-
vour'd chiefly to promote a due sense of Religion in their own Breasts, tho'
they have since been eminently instrumental in the publick Reformation.2
1 James Allan Park, Memoirs of the late William Stevens, Esq. ed. by Dr. Chr.
Wordsworth, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, Rivington, 1859, Preface, p. iv. See also
The Club of "Nobody's Friends," privately printed, 1902, vol. ii. p. 161.
2 Woodward, p, 64.
302 SOCIETIES FOR REFORMING MANNERS.
Thus a new kind of Society came into existence ; the old Societies
were spiritual and charitable agencies ; the new were to be agres-
sive and often harmful instruments for attacks upon open and
barefaced breaches of morality. Such attacks require the utmost
prudence and foresight. And it may be feared that both these
gifts were often wanting in the agents employed by the Societies for
the Reformation of Manners. It is no matter for surprise that they
quickly became decadent. So that as early as 1702, their tenden
cies had been detected.
Are not we in a fair way to see the Nation Reform'd, when a parcel of
Beggarly Informers undertake the Pious Work ?
King James the Second might as soon have Enslav'd his Protestant
Subjects with a Popish Army, as our late Societies for Reformation of Man
ners, mend the Nation. These New Apostles Are for the most part, a set
of Scoundrels, who are Maintained by Lying, serve God for unrighteous
Gain.1
In 1709 Swift is much more friendly, yet he speaks of them
thus:
Religious societies, though begun with excellent intention, and by
persons of true piety, are said, I know not whether truly or not, to have
dwindled into factious clubs, and grown a trade to enrich little knavish
informers of the meanest rank, such as common constables, and broken
shopkeepers.2
Swift has not drawn a distinction between the Religious Societies,
and the Societies for the Reformation of Manners.
But the history of the Societies for the Reformation of Man
ners has so recently and so fully been set forth by the Rev. Garnet
V. Portus 3 that there is no great need to pursue their history in
this work. They seem to have dwindled, notwithstanding strong
support from the Bishops, and the last reference to them that I
find is one in 1763, where they violently attacked the keeper of a
public house in Chancery Lane and were fined £300 in damages
for their act.*
Nor, if the following resolutions bear upon a society for the re
formation of manners, does their behaviour in church seem to have
been all that it should be.
1 [Abel Boyer,] The English Theophrastus, London, Turner and Chantry, 1702, p.
143.
2 Jonathan Swift, A Project for the Advancement of Religion, in Works, ed. Wal
ter Scott, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. viii. p. 221.
3 Garnet V. Portus, Caritas Anglicana, Mowbray, 1912.
4 Annual Register, 1763, Chronicle, Feb. 23, p. 57.
S.P.C.K. AND S.P.G. 3°3
At a vestry meeting of St. Alban's Wood Street held on
Wednesday, May 14, 1760, the question was put:
Whether the Sunday morning Society frequenting this Church shall
be permitted to continue for one year longer on their contributing and
paying such sum towards the Repairs of the Church ... or intirely dis
missed the use of the Church ?
It was ordered
That the said Society have immediate notice to provide themselves
with a Church elsewhere on or before Christmas next untill which time
they may continue at this Church they keeping the Church clean and
decent and behaving so as not to occasion any complaints against them.1
The vestry repeated this order on July 2, 1 760.
In the New Whole Duty of Man there is " a prayer for the
Religious Societies". The Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel is named and also the societies " for Christian conference
and works of piety " as well as for those " for putting the laws in
execution against the vitious and profane ".2
THE GREAT CHURCH SOCIETIES.
Three great Church Societies were founded during our period ;
the S.P.C.K., the S.P.G. and the National Society for educating
children in the principles of the Church of England. First to come
into life was the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge,
founded on March 8, 1699 by four laymen and one clergyman. Its
history has been written of late, on the occasion of its second
hundredth anniversary, so that reference to this book may be
enough for present purposes.3
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
was incorporated on June 16 in the year 1701. Its first beginnings
were encouraged by the sister Society, the Society for promoting
Christian Knowledge, and thus for two hundred years these two
great Societies have been working together.4
The National Society for promoting the Education of the Poor
in the Principles of the Established Church was founded on October
16, 1811. On May 19, 1812 it had over £15,000 at its bankers,5
1 Guildhall Library, London, 1264, i. pp. 287 and 305.
2 The prayer continues in an edition printed by J. McGowan in 1819, p. 476.
3 W. O. B. Allen and Edmund McClure, Two Hundred Years : the history of the
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1698-1898, London, S.P.C.K. 1898.
4 The Spiritual Expansion of the Empire, S.P.G. 1900.
5 First Annual Report of the National Society , London, 1812, p. 62.
304 THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES.
and subscribers whose names extend over eighty octavo pages of
the Report.
The Society for promoting the Enlargement and Building of
Churches and Chapels was founded in 1818 and incorporated by
Act of Parliament in 1828. Its income in 1832 was over £17,000
and Free Sittings even then were a prominent feature in the
Society's grants.1
Thus the Societies founded in our period continue to this day
the work for which they were set up. Had our period been utterly
apathetic in its duty towards God and its neighbour, it could
hardly have established these great Church Societies and then main
tained them in the flourishing state that they are found in at the
end of the first third of the nineteenth century.
THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES.
In the nineteenth century much complaint was made of the
setting up of theological colleges. It can easily be understood why
the average privy-councillor, or member of parliament, business,
University, or professional man should object to a well-trained par
son or curate. Such clergymen are able to set him right upon
subjects which he has not studied, yet upon which he loves to dog
matise in the superior liberal manner. " The man of facts is a bore,"
he would say : " he has such a knack of upsetting you." Yet why
a bishop should be on the side of ignorance is not at all clear. It
might have been thought that an elementary course of instruction
in divinity might have been of some use to the candidate for orders.
Be this as it may, all that is now to be remarked is that the idea of
a special preparation for men intending to apply for holy orders was
not unknown in our period.
Gilbert Burnet, who has been called the founder of the Lati-
tudinarian school in the Church of England, has left a note behind
him in which he expresses a wish to be able to counteract the
narrowing effects of a University education. It might be that he
foresaw the time when the Bishops will refuse to ordain a man who
has gone through the contracting influence of an English Uni
versity.
I thought the greatest prejudice the Church was under was from the
ill education of the Clergy In the Vniversities they for most part lost the
1 Incorporated Society for promoting the Enlargement, etc. Annual Report, May 21,
1832, London, Clay, 1832, p. 16.
THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES. 305
learning they brought with them from Schools and learned so very little
in them that too commonly they came from them lesse knowing than when
they went to them especially the servitors who if they had not a very good
capacity and were very well disposed of themselves were generally neg
lected by their Tutors. They likewise learned the airs of Vanity and
Insolence at the Vniversities so that I resolved to have a nursery at Salis
bury of students in Divinity who should follow their studies and Devotions
till I could provide them. I allowed them 30lib- a piece and during my
stay at Salisbury I ordered them to come to me once a day and then I
answered such difficulties as occurred to them in their studies and enter
tained them with some discourse either on the Speculative or Practicall
part of Divinity or some branch of the Pastorall care. This lasted an
hour. And thus I hoped to have formed some to have served to good
purpose in the Church some of these have answered my expectation to
the full and continue still labouring in the Gospell. But they were not all
equally well chosen this was considered as a present setlement that drew a
better one after it so I was prevailed on by importunity to receive some
who did not answer expectation. Those at Oxford looked on this as a
publike affront to them and to their way of Education so that they railed
at me not only in secret but in their Acts unmercifully for it.1
The same idea entered the mind of Burnet's very opposite,
Denys Granville, Dean of Durham. Sir George Wheler in a letter
to Mr. Bemont, dated August 19, 1693, speaks of the Dean's
purpose to make the Cathedral the great seminary of young Divines for the
Diocesse, and to this end to invite ingenuous young men to be Minor
Canons, he got this order past in Chapter, that what preferments the
Chapter had to dispose of, the Minor Canons according to their seniority,
meritts, and deserts should have the option before any other; and to
further them in their studies, did intend them the use of the College
library; and that they might continue a regular and Collegiate life, had
often thoughts of getting them lodgings erected in the Colledge.2
Speaking of the two Universities and their foundations in divinity
Robert Nelson says it is a thing to be wished
that we had also some of these Foundations entirely set apart for the
forming of such as are Candidates for Holy Orders ; where they might be
fully instructed in all that knowledge which that Holy Institution requires,
and in all those Duties which are peculiarly incumbent upon a Parochial
Priest.
Where Lectures might be daily read, which in a certain Course of Time
should include a perfect Scheme of Divinity ; where all peculiar Cases of
Conscience might be clearly stated, and such general Rules laid down, as
1 MS. Bodl. Add. D. 24. fo. 213. Edited also by Miss H. C. Foxcroft, A supple
ment to Burnet's History of my own time, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1902, p. 500.
2 Robert Surtees, The history . . . of Durham, London, Nichols, 1816, vol. i.
P- 175-
20
306 THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES.
might be able to assist them in giving Satisfaction to all those that repair to
them for Advice in difficult Matters.
Where they might receive right Notions of all those Spiritual Rights
which are appropriated to the Priesthood, and which are not in the Power
of the greatest secular Person either to convey or abolish ; and yet are of
such great Importance that some of them are not only necessary to the well
being but to the very Being of the Church.
Where they might be taught to perform all the Publick Offices of Re
ligion with a becoming Gravity and Devotion, and with all that Advantage
of Elocution, which is aptest to secure Attention, and beget devout Af
fections in the Congregation.
Where they might particularly be directed, how to receive clinical Con
fessions, how to make their Applications to Persons in Times of Sickness,
and have such a Method formed to guide their Addresses of that Nature,
that they might never be at a Loss when they are called upon to assist sick
and dying Persons.
Where they might be instructed in the Art of Preaching ; whereby I
mean not only the best Method in composing their Sermons, but all those
decent Gestures and graceful Deportment, the Influence whereof all Hearers
can easier feel than express.
And where they might have such judicious Rules given them for prose
cuting their Theological Studies as would be of great Use to them in their
future Conduct.1
Something of the kind that Robert Nelson wished for, had already
been set up by the good Bishop of Man, Dr. Thomas Wilson.
4. Setting up Colleges, or Seminaries for the Candidates of Holy Orders ;
and particularly for the Mission into America, and other Remote Parts.
* * *
And if the Palaces of Bishops might become again, as heretofore, the
Schools of Candidates for the Holy Ministry, how then would Religion in
general, and our Church in particular, flourish ? . . .
However a small seminary of this kind hath within these few years been
set up in the Isle of Man, under the Direction of the good Bishop thereof
[i.e. Thomas Wilson].2
This seminary continued in the days of Dr. Mark Hildesley, his
immediate successor in the see of Sodor and Man, of whom his
biographer says :
There was one business in particular, concerning which he always felt
himself very anxious ; namely, the improvement of the academical scholars,
or young men of the island, designed for the ministry in the Church of
Mann. They were ordered constantly to attend him once a month at
1 Robert Nelson, The Life of Dr. George Bull, London, Richard Smith, 1713, p. 19.
For the convenience of the reader the passage has been broken up into shorter paragraphs.
2 Robert Nelson, An Address to Persons of Quality and Estate, London, 1715,
Appen. p. 122.
THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES. 307
Bishop's Court, where he personally examined them in the Classicks, the
Greek Testament, and the Thirty-nine Articles ; then had them to read over
distinctly some portion of the Holy Scriptures, in order to qualify them for
reading in publick.1
Dr. Pococke, the Bishop of Meath, found this seminary at work in
1750. On June 27 he writes:
The young men who are educated at the academy at Castleton for the
ministry, are frequently taken in to the bishop's house to be under his eye,
and study divinity for two or three years before they go into Orders, and
the example, conversation, and instructions of such a prelate must be of
great advantage to them.2
Dr. George Berkeley, before he was Bishop of Cloyne, spent
some four years in London endeavouring to secure a charter for a
Theological College in the Bermudas. In 1725 he published in
London through H. Woodfall his Proposal for a College in Bermuda.
A College or Seminary in those parts is very much wanted : and there
fore the providing such a Seminary is earnestly proposed and recommended
to all those who have it in their power to contribute to so good a work.
By this, two ends would be obtained : —
First, the youth of our English Plantations might be themselves fitted
for the ministry.
* * *
Secondly, the children of savage Americans, b?ought up in such a
Seminary, and well instructed in religion and learning, might make the ablest
and properest missionaries for spreading the gospel among their countrymen.3
A charter was granted by King George the Second in 1725
for the founding of a College by the name of St. Paul's College in
Bermuda. The President and Fellows were to have the power of
conferring Degrees in all Faculties.4
The idea of special professional training is so reasonable and
promises to be so fruitful that it is somewhat astonishing that with
these precedents it was left to the nineteenth century to put the
conception into practice. The other two learned professions, those
of the lawyer, and the physician, have now to undergo highly special
ised training after leaving the University. Why should the clergy
man have such a specially disadvantageous privilege thrust upon him ?
1 Memoirs of Mark Hildesley, D.D. Lord Bishop of So dor and Mann, ed. by the
Rev. Weeden Butler, London, J. Nichols, 1799, p. 81.
2 The travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, ed. by J. J. Cartwright,
Camden Society, 1888, vol. i. p. 2.
3 The Works of George Berkeley, ed. by A. C. Fraser, Oxford, 1901, vol. iv. p. 347.
4 ibid. p. 362.
20*
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX.
RULES FOR THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY GIVEN BY DR. HORNECK.
[The Life of the Reverend Anthony Horneck, by Richard [Kidder] Bishop of Bath and
Wells, London, Aylmer, 1698, p. 13.]
I. That all that entered into such a society should resolve upon an holy
and serious Life.
II. That no person shall be admitted into this Society till he arrive
at the age of Sixteen, and hath been first confirmed by the Bishop, and
solemnly taken on himself his Baptismal Vow.
III. That they chuse a Minister of the Church of England to direct
them.
IV. That they shall not be allowed in their meetings to discourse of
any controverted point of Divinity.
V. Neither shall they discourse of the Government of Church or
State.
VI. That in their meetings they use no Prayers but those of the Church,
such as the Litany and Collects, and other prescribed Prayers ; but still
they shall not use any that peculiarly belong to the Minister, as the Absolu
tion.
VII. That the Minister whom they chuse shall direct what practical
Divinity shall be read at these meetings.
VIII. That they may have liberty, after Prayer and Reading, to sing
a Psalm.
IX. That after all is done, if there be time left, they may discourse
each other about their spiritual concerns ; but this shall not be a standing
Exercise, which any shall be obliged to attend unto.
X. That one day in the Week be appointed for this meeting, for such
as cannot come on the Lord's Day, and that he that absents himself with
out cause shall pay three Pence to the Box.
XI. Every time they meet, every one shall give six Pence to the Box.
XII. That on a certain day in the year, viz. Whitsun- Tuesday, two
Stewards shall be chosen, and a moderate Dinner provided, and a Sermon
preached, and the Money distributed (necessary Charges deducted) to the
Poor.
XIII. A Book shall be bought, in which these Orders shall be written.
308
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX. 309
XIV. None shall be admitted into this Society without the consent of
the Minister who presides over it ; and no Apprentice shall be capable of
being chosen.
XV. That if any Case of Conscience arise, it shall be brought before
the Minister.
XVI. If any Member think fit to leave the Society, he shall pay five
Shillings to the Stock.
XVII. The major part of the Society to conclude the rest.
XVIII. The following Rules are more especially to be commended to
the Members of this Society, viz.
To love one another :
When reviled, not to revile again :
To speak evil of no man :
To wrong no man :
To pray, if possible, seven times a day :
To keep close to the Church of England :
To transact all things peaceably and gently :
To be helpfull to each other :
To use themselves to holy Thoughts in their coming in and going out :
To examine themselves every night :
To give every one their due :
To obey Superiors both Spiritual and Temporal.
RULES OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF ST. GILES' CRIPPLEGATE.
[By the kindness of the Rev. Albert Barff, Vicar of St. Giles' Cripple-
gate, and Prebendary of St. Paul's, I am enabled to give extracts from a
manuscript belonging to St. Giles'. It is a book of paper, 16 by 6-J inches,
bound in limp vellum with two clasps.
The Orders and Rules have been begun at one end of the book ; and
accounts begin at the other. The Orders and Rules are written on the
recto only, and the same hand seems to have been employed from p. i to
the end of p. 20, where several hands begin to write the names of members.]
/ Orders and Rules [p. i.
To be Observed by all the Members of the Society.
1. That the Sole design of this Society, being to promote Real Holiness
of heart and Life ; it is Absolutely necessary, that the Persons who enter
into it do seriously Resolve to apply themselves in good earnest to all means
proper to make them wise unto Salvation.
2. That the Members of this Society shall meet together one Evening
in the week at a Convenient place in order to Encourage each other in
practical Holiness : by discoursing on Spiritual subjects and reading God's
Holy word and to pray to Almighty God and praise his name together.
3io APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX.
3. That at such meetings there be no dispute about controversial
points State Affairs or the concerns of trade and worldly things ; but the
whole bent of the Discourse, be to the Glory of God : and to Edifie one
another in Love.
4. That it be left to every Persons discretion to contribute at every
weekly meeting what he thinks fit towards a Publick Stock for maintaining
a Sermon and to defray other /necessary charges and the money thus [p. 3.
collect shall be kept by the Stewards (who shall be chose by majority of
voices every half year) to be disposed of by the Major part of the Society
for the uses abovementioned, and the said Stewards shall keep a faithfull
Register of what is thus collected, and Distributed to be perused by any
Member of the Society at Request.
5. That every Member shall clear his part in the Roll once in two
months : the charge of the Sermon occurring once in that time.
6. That at the time of choosing new Stewards there shall be likewise
chose, [(]by the new Stewards) Six Collectors to serve for the following
half year and if any of these Collectors so chosen neglect to come or pro
vide one to serve in their place they shall forfeit six pence for every such
default.
7. That if any Member Absent himself three Sunday nights together
he shall forfeit twopence and shall be judged Disaffected to the Society ;
without giving a Satisfactory account to the Stewards.
8. That one or both of the Stewards shall not fail upon the forfeit of
six pence before the next time of meeting to visit and enquire into the
reasons of such members absence and desire him to be more frequent in
Meeting his brethren for each others mutual advantage and if after such
visit he continues to absent himself four nights more let him be Excluded.
9. That if the Stewards neglect to gather in the forfeits they shall be
liable to pay the same themselves.
/io. That none shall be admitted into this Society without giving [p. 5.
due notice thereof to the Stewards who shall acquaint the whole Society
therewith and after due Enquiry into their Religious purposes and manner
of life they may be admitted to subscribe their names.
11. That every one that is so admitted a member of this Society shall with
the subscribing of his name to the Orders enter down his Profession and also
the place of his abode and shall if he at any time remove acquaint the
Stewards therewith.
12. That every Member in this Society look as near as he can after
each others conversation and if they find any that walks disorderly let him
Admonish him privately by himself and if it prove inefectual let him be
reprov'd before one or two more and if this prove inefectual also, let him
be reprov'd before the whole Society and if this reclaims him not let him
be Excluded.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX. 311
13. That every Person concern'd in this Society do wholly decline all
Ale-House Games ; and shun all unnecessary resort to such Houses, and
Taverns and wholly to avoid Play-Houses.
Rules. 14. That the respective members of this Society shall heartily
endeavour through God's Grace.
Rule i. To be just in all their Dealings even to an Exemplary Strict
ness.
2. To pray many times every day.
3. To partake of the Lord's Supper once a month at least if not
prevented by a Reasonable impediment.
4. To practice the profoundest Meekness and Humility.
5. To watch against Censuring others.
6. To accustome themselves to Holy thoughts/In all Places, [p. 7.
7. To take care of their words and give not way to foolish Jest
ing.
8. To be very modest and Decent in Apparel.
9. To be helpful to one another.
10. To shun all foreseen Occasions of evil as evil company known
Temptations etc.
11. To think often of the different estates of the Glorified and
Damned ; in the unchangeable eternity to which we are
Hastening.
12. To examine themselves every night what good or evil they
have done the day past.
13. To keep a private fast once a month especially near our ap
proach to 
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